Navigating the World of Open Networking: Bare Metal, White Box, and Brite Box Switches

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At STORDIS, our mission is to help businesses build efficient, scalable, and reliable network infrastructures. In the realm of open networking, several options are available, including Bare Metal, White Box, and Brite Box switches. While all of these options are “open,” they each have unique characteristics. In this blog post, I will objectively explain the key differences between these three types of switches and share my personal preference at the end.

Disaggregation in Networking

Disaggregation refers to the separation of hardware and software components, allowing businesses to choose the best combination for their unique needs. This approach optimizes network infrastructure for performance, cost, and flexibility. At STORDIS, we help businesses aggregate these disaggregated components, creating tailored solutions that perfectly fit their requirements.

Bare Metal Switches

Bare Metal switches are open switches without any network operating system (NOS) included. Businesses purchase the hardware and then choose the NOS that best supports their applications or operational environment. Some of the major Bare Metal manufacturers include Accton, Foxconn, Quanta QCT, Alpha Networks, Delta Computer, and Celestica. These companies produce high-quality hardware that can be customized to your heart’s content.

White Box Switches

White Box switches are open switches that come with an NOS installed. They are not fully integrated like “black box” switches, meaning the hardware and NOS can be managed independently. Essentially, businesses are purchasing a bundled solution consisting of a Bare Metal switch and an NOS. Examples of such solutions include IP Infusion‘s IPI Pro (Edgecore hardware and IPI OcNOS software) and IPI Fast (UFI Space hardware and IPI OcNOS software) or Pluribus’ Freedom offer (Pluribus Network today under Arista).

Brite Box Switches

Brite Box switches, or BRanded whITE box switches, are open switches with a pre-installed NOS and a brand name, such as for example Dell (who in fact has a really strong portfolio for Data Center, Enterprise and Campus market). These switches are typically made by Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs) that also produce Bare Metal switches. A Brite Box switch may be the same as the ODM’s Bare Metal switch but features a branded front bezel.

bare-metal-vs-white-box-vs-brite-box

Choosing the Right Switch

Understanding the differences between Bare Metal, White Box, and Brite Box switches will help businesses make informed decisions when selecting the best option for their network infrastructure. Factors such as budget, performance requirements, and preferred level of customization will influence the choice.

My Personal Preference and Background

Before joining STORDIS, I had the opportunity to work at Edgecore Networks (part of Accton Technology), an open networking leader. Based on my experience, I developed a personal preference for Bare Metal switches. They offer simplicity and flexibility, enabling businesses to create tailored solutions that cater to their unique networking needs. By separating hardware and software components, businesses have the freedom to choose the best possible combination, optimizing for cost and performance.

At STORDIS, we are dedicated to helping businesses navigate the world of open networking and find the ideal solution to meet their needs. As an Open Networking (humble…) Expert, I take pride in assisting organizations in aggregating the disaggregated, building robust and efficient network infrastructures. If you’re considering an open networking solution, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team of experts.

I hope you found this blog post informative and helpful. If you did, please feel free to like, share, and follow our social media channels for more content like this. I will continue to share insights and knowledge about the open networking industry in future blog posts. If you have any questions, concerns, or would like to discuss your networking needs, please don’t hesitate to contact me directly. Together, we can find the best open networking solution for your business.

Additionally, I am excited to offer a free course called “Unboxing Open Networking” under the route2open academia. This course is designed to provide a comprehensive introduction to Open Networking, covering its history, key organizations, etc. etc. By the end of the course, you will understand what disaggregation is, the benefits of Open Networking, and how it compares to traditional networking approaches.

I invite all interested tech enthusiasts to join our course and delve deeper into the world of Open Networking. To enroll in the course, simply visit the following link: R2O-UON – Unboxing Open Networking. Together, we can find the best open networking solution for your business and shape the future of this revolutionary technology.

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What is Intel®Tofino™? Main Benefits & Use Cases

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As time progresses, more and more innovative products are needed. The best example of the innovation at hand these days is the Intel®Tofino™ ASIC. With massive bandwidth and an increase in data availability, Intel®Tofino™ is just the thing you need. After all, who doesn't want flexibility and reliability in the DC Infrastructure?

Why don't you take a deeper dive into the Intel®Tofino™ technology? Here's everything you need to know!

Whitebox Switches: Fixed vs Programmable ASICS

ASICs are specifically designed for the special transmission of any kind of network traffic. Nowadays, two variants of ASICs are available; fixed and programmable, providing you with a number of options and possibilities.

The main difference between the two ASIC options is flexibility and adaptation. The fixed ASIC switch is the traditional approach which comes with a pre-defined data plane function structure and has a limited ability to manipulate the packet processing.

But what about the programmable ASIC switch? Are they the ones who can adapt to your needs by providing the flexibility required to establish your own or application-specific parameters? Definitely.

Programmable ASICs are the ones that offer methods to define the data plane functionality in a flexible way, using open source programming languages such as P4. This customizable pipeline or packet processing engine can be programmed according to your requirements. You can program the processing in innovative ways to make it compatible with any standard or non-standard Ethernet type. Furthermore, you benefit in getting the ability to build protocol specific extensions without the need to replace the switch ASIC by a new generation, as you would need to do it with a fixed function ASIC approach.

What is Intel®Tofino™ ASIC? Is it programmable?

What do programmable switches have to do with Intel®Tofino™ ? You will find that out in just a minute or two!

If you talk about Intel®Tofino™, it is a programmable switch ASIC that is based on a model called PISA (protocol-independent switch architecture) and allows you various opportunities that are otherwise not possible with fixed pipeline-based switches. At the same time, they provide you with full-fledged performance with your device so that it can reach its full potential.

Intel®Tofino™ provides you with bandwidth up to 400GbE speed per port today with a roadmap exceeding the current level by multiple factors. Diving into it deeper, it's important to understand that Intel®Tofino™ is programmable via the Open Source Programming Language called P4. This language was designed to program any kind of network device (switches, NICs, routers, etc.) and gives you the ability to control how packets are processed through your device.

Last but surely not least, to give you an interesting example, you are capable of defining your own process to identify bottlenecks within your network and tune it in an automatic AI fashion. You can also export flow-specific metadata information to external apps to in-depth analyze specific things.

Intel®Tofino™ – How It Started?

When you have a breakthrough technology such as Intel®Tofino™, you often wonder who were the genius people creating such an innovation. This revolutionary fabric processor was created and proposed by Barefoot Networks in 2013 under the co-founder's Nick McKeown, Martin Izzard, Pat Bosshart, and Stefanos Sidiropoulos. At that time, the ASIC was already running at up to 6.5 Tbit/s. After its massive success, it was purchased by none other than Intel® in 2019, where it got even more recognition, and this is what that technology deserves.

Data Center of the Future with Intel®Tofino™

Different organizations and different people propose a variety of structures for the data centers of the future. It is surely a topic worthy of debate, and each brings forward the framework that suits best for him.

However, according to Intel®, the data center of the future will be derived from Intel®Tofino™ and P4. They believe that the data center of the future will be many times more efficient and beneficial than they are now.

It can be explained by measuring the needs for the future. Present-day data centers are complicated, mixed up, have security issues, and have no way of creating an application-optimized forwarding with AI methods. All these complications will be solved by Intel®Tofino™'s ability to be programmed. Let's discuss a scenario in which you are using a fixed switch. You used it for VXLAN, but now you want IPL routing or MPLS. You cannot use a fixed switch as it does not come with much flexibility. But on the other hand, if you deploy a programmable switch, you can program each stage in different ways.

Intel®Tofino™ Generations

If you believe that Intel®Tofino™ has only one generation, you need to think again! Does innovation stop updating if it's successful? A big no!

Before Intel®Tofino™ was handed over to the Intel® group, it had already proposed the other generations of Intel, namely Intel®Tofino™ 1, Intel®Tofino™ 2 and Intel®Tofino™ 3. The third generation is soon to be published and launched in 2022.

Intel®Tofino™ 1 vs. Intel®Tofino™ 2 vs. Intel®Tofino™ 3

As for the three generations of Intel®Tofino™, it is understandable that they will have different strengths and weaknesses. On the other hand, they have different purposes and usability. The speed of the Intel®Tofino™ Generations is 25 Gbps, 56 Gbps, and 112 Gbps, respectively.


Intel®Tofino™ 1 supported only up to 100 Gb of port speed. But as for the other two generations, they can offer up to 400 Gb and level 2 schedulers. The only significant differences between the second and third-generation Intel®Tofino™ is the increase of resources, improved number of pipelines and a throughput bandwidth of 25.6 Tb.

Advantages of Intel®Tofino™

The advantages and uses of Intel®Tofino™ are immaculate. It´s hard to list all benefits the product can provide. However, some of the main benefits are worth highlighting. Real time in-band telemetry becomes a lot easier with the help of Intel®Tofino™. Adding metadata information to the packet processing creates a lot of options to monitor the network in-depth. Thus, opening many gates for more research.

One of the crucial parts of data centers is the load balancers. They are used in almost every data center, and they regulate the traffic that comes into data centers. However, Intel®Tofino™ can exclude the need for load balancers from the data centers altogether by acting as load balancers themselves.

The greatest benefit of Intel®Tofino™ ASIC switches is that they open the gates for many other opportunities. It acts as a platform for many other options and applications. Moreover, they are designed in a way that they require less power and space, making them the perfect switches to deploy. It can be safely said that Intel®Tofino™ has great potential to evolve in the future and provide endless possibilities with a little more effort and time.

If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to drop us a message. We'll be sure to contact you as soon as we can! After all, your contentment is our greatest responsibility.

Learn more about the Edgecore 400GbE Tofino2 switch DCS810 (AS9516-32D).

Read More About Open Networking

Read More About STORDIS Switch Services

Want to Learn More About it?

Get in touch with us and we will answer all of your questions.

Contact Us
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Webinar Recording Available: “Fast Performance with Extensive Programmability – Intel Tofino 2” with Intel, Edgecore and STORDIS

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On September 30th, 2021 we held a webinar together with our partners Intel® and Edgecore Networks on the Intel® Tofino™ 2. The live webinar was quite a success with a great turnout and some very interested attendees with many great questions on the Intel® Tofino™ 2.

We would like to thank everyone involved in making that webinar possible and would also say a “thank you” to everyone that registered and attended the webinar for the great time and experience. However if you were not able to attend the webinar or have missed registering for it – do not worry: The full webinar has been recorded and can be accessed on BrightTALK, after a quick registration.

See below, for a quick summary of what you can expect from the webinar and the links to the webinar recording.

Also don’t forget that we are still running our special A&R discount for the Intel® Tofino™ 2 based Edgecore DCS810 (AS9516-32D). You can get more information here.

Blazing Fast Performance with Extensive Programmability – Intel Tofino 2

Webinar Title:

Blazing Fast Performance with Extensive Programmability – Intel® Tofino™ 2

About the Webinar:

During the webinar, you’ll learn about the latest innovation from Intel’s Programmable Switch team, the P4 programmable Tofino 2, and how Edgecore Networks is leveraging this new technology in an innovative new switch design aimed at hyperscale data center operators and use cases, including network telemetry, layer 4 load balancing, network packet broker and more. Finally, you will learn about STORDIS and their Academia & Research Program dedicated for P4 and other Programs which are filling the Open Networking gaps.

Presenters:

  • John Demay, Business Development and Sales, Intel Corporation,
  • Matthew Roman, VP Marketing and Product Management, Edgecore Networks,
  • Łukasz Łukowski, Chief Sales & Marketing Officer, STORDIS,

When:

, on BrightTALK

10% Discount on Hardware

Register now and benefit from a special 10% discount* for the Intel® Tofino™ 2 based Edgecore DCS810 (AS9516-32D), by mentioning the code “SDG_A&R_AS9516” in your quote request.

*Special conditions apply for that discount:
  • You need to be registered and approved in our A&R Program and the webinar
  • Limited to 2 units per customer/project
  • Purchase Order must be with STORDIS, before .

Register for the A&R ProgramRequest a Quote

Want to Learn More About it?

Get in touch with us and we will answer all of your questions.

Contact Us
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Webinar Invitation: “Fast Performance with Extensive Programmability – Intel Tofino 2” with Intel, Edgecore and STORDIS

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You may have already noticed that the first Intel® Tofino™ 2 based network switches are starting to become available, for example Edgecore’s AS9516-32D (also known as DCS810), the world’s first 32x 400G P4 programmable switch.

The Intel® Tofino™ 2 ASIC brings P4 programmability to a whole new level, providing a bandwidth of up to 12.8 Tb/s – double the bandwidth than the first-gen Intel® Tofino™.

If you want to learn more about the Intel Tofino 2, we would like to invite you to our upcoming webinar, which we are organizing together with our partners Intel® and Edgecore:

Blazing Fast Performance with Extensive Programmability – Intel Tofino 2

Webinar Title:

Blazing Fast Performance with Extensive Programmability – Intel® Tofino™ 2

About the Webinar:

During the webinar, you’ll learn about the latest innovation from Intel’s Programmable Switch team, the P4 programmable Tofino 2, and how Edgecore Networks is leveraging this new technology in an innovative new switch design aimed at hyperscale data center operators and use cases, including network telemetry, layer 4 load balancing, network packet broker and more. Finally, you will learn about STORDIS and their Academia & Research Program dedicated for P4 and other Programs which are filling the Open Networking gaps.

Presenters:

  • John Demay, Business Development and Sales, Intel Corporation,
  • Matthew Roman, VP Marketing and Product Management, Edgecore Networks,
  • Łukasz Łukowski, Chief Sales & Marketing Officer, STORDIS,

When:

, on BrightTALK

Read More About the Live Webinar

Register for the Webinar

10% Discount on Hardware

Register now and benefit from a special 10% discount* for the Intel® Tofino™ 2 based Edgecore DCS810 (AS9516-32D), by mentioning the code “SDG_A&R_AS9516” in your quote request.

*Special conditions apply for that discount:
  • You need to be registered and approved in our A&R Program and the webinar
  • Limited to 2 units per customer/project
  • Purchase Order must be with STORDIS, before .

Register for the A&R ProgramRequest a Quote

Want to Learn More About it?

Get in touch with us and we will answer all of your questions.

Contact Us
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Edgecore Wedge100BF Tofino-based Switches Now Generally Available

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Edgecore Networks Corporation announces general availability of the Wedge100BF switches with a programmable Tofino ASIC for high-performance data center network environments. The bare-metal top-of-rack (TOR) or spine switches support 32x100G ports, enable greater flexibility, control and innovation of enhanced network services, and support the installation of various open and commercial network operating system software.

STORDIS is an official partner of Edgecore Networks and your reliable source to obtain versatile Edgecore devices. Contact us for more information about the Wedge100BF series.

We offer special rates for members of academia and research institutions.

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Merchant Silicon in Data Centers

The data center market is undoubtedly changing towards disaggregated network infrastructures and industry experts recognize a trend that has been rapidly evolving over the last few years. Even legacy vendors have started to integrate third-party commodity silicon into their proprietary solutions to meet the operators’ needs for acceleration and uniformity. The article ‘Why Merchant Silicon Is Taking Over the Data Center Network Market’ by Emily Carr, published by Data Center Knowledge, talks about the increasing relevance of merchant silicon for today’s data center infrastructures.

IHS Markit analysts expect that 63 percent of all Ethernet switches shipping in 2022 will be merchant silicon, and even legacy vendors such as Cisco and Juniper are following this trend for disaggregation. Mike Bushong, VP of enterprise and cloud marketing for Juniper, estimates that the adoption of merchant silicon will increase rapidly throughout the data center industry. Not only are the benefits of economic nature, but operations can also be performed faster and much more efficiently by reducing diversity.

A decisive circumstance fueling this development occurred in 2016, when companies such as AT&T and the Chinese hyperscaler Tencent employed Tofino-based Barefoot Networks switches with a P4 programmable chipset. By incorporating open source software to their proprietary solutions, legacy vendors like Arista and Cisco eliminate the need for technologically advanced programmers to benefit from the complexity of white boxes, making their solutions accessible to companies of any size.

Alexander Jeffries, founder and CEO of STORDIS, talks to Data Center Knowledge about his experiences and what role the ‘STORDIS Advance Programmable Switches’ (APS) are playing in this development. Jeffries has witnessed the transition of data center networks for more than ten years, he knows the industry, he talks to customers and understands their demand for certain kind of hardware devices.

‘The kind of customers we’re talking to for these kinds of switches are quite a bit different to what we were talking to in the past,’ Jeffries says. ‘We’re getting a lot of interest from service providers – so telecommunication companies – the security environments, lots of interest in academic research, from all kinds of use cases,’ quotes the article.

 

Jeffries expects that open source will become standard in the network industry and supports the acceptance and use of open source in the German market. As a result, STORDIS is an active member and contributor to open source projects and organizations such as ONF (Open Network Foundation), P4 Language Consortium, and Open Source Business Alliance.

The company designed the APS to provide P4 programmable, open, high-performance bare metal switches delivering versatile features, such as INT and PTP, in a unique combination with powerful hardware.

 

Disclaimer:

The original article ‘Why Merchant Silicon Is Taking Over the Data Center Network Market’ by Emily Carr was published by the leading online source Data Center Knowledge on June 5th. We are not liable for the content of or any opinions expressed in the original article. Alexander Jeffries, CEO of STORDIS gave an interview in the context of the OCP, which was included in the article.

You can read the full article at https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/networks/why-merchant-silicon-taking-over-data-center-network-market

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Award for shipping most open networking switches

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STORDIS is proud to be awarded the Edgecore Networks Corporation Partner Award for our outstanding efforts in bringing the Open Networking Revolution to Europe.

STORDIS CEO Alexander P. Jeffries gratefully accepted the award for shipping most open networking switches in Europe during 2017 at this year’s partner seminar. Edgecore Networks is a leading manufacturer of high-quality bare-metal switches. In combination with switch OSes like PICA8, Inc., Cumulus Networks, IP Infusion, Noviware from NoviFlow Inc., these switches can adapt to different use cases like Telco, Enterprise or Datacenter.

STORDIS is helping companies to find the best match of Edgecore hardware and the most fitting software since 2015. Get in touch with us and we’ll help you find yours as well.

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Edgecore Networks Introduces Open Networking for Cell Sites

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Big announcement from Edgecore Networks Corporation! “The introduction of the fully open Edgecore AS7316-26XB cell site gateway will extend open networking into cell site deployments, lowering cost and enabling increased software control from open platforms, to meet the increasing bandwidth and service demands that providers face in their mobile networks today and in their upcoming 5G rollouts.” says George Tchaparian, CEO from Edgecore.

STORDIS is your trusted partner for Edgecore products and Open Networking solutions. If you would like to know more, feel free to send us a message.

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