Open Compute Project (OCP), Open Network Install Environment (ONIE) and Switch Abstraction Interface (SAI)
Open Compute US Summit 2015 – San Jose, CA, March 10, 2015 – Cavium, Inc., (NASDAQ: CAVM), a leading provider of semiconductor products that enable intelligent processing for enterprise, data center, wired and wireless networking today announced its commitment to driving an open ecosystem for data center switching. Qualification of hardware platforms as well as standardization of software interfaces enables both OEM and 3rd party innovation ushering in a new era in open Ethernet switching.
The Open Compute Project (OCP) was created with the goal of developing the most efficient data center designs for scalable solutions, by openly sharing ideas, specifications and other intellectual property. A growing number of established networking vendors are adopting OCP, contributing their own intellectual property. Cavium’s XPliant team is working with both hardware and software vendors to submit OCP designs. This combination enables XPliant Packet Architecture™ (XPA)-powered switches to be the most flexible and open customer friendly architecture in the market.
The Open Network Install Environment (ONIE) is an OCP open source initiative that enables the decoupling of Ethernet switch hardware from networking software. Using a switch supplied with ONIE, the customer can freely add the software of their choice. The OCP specification has also defined an open API, Switch Abstraction Interface (SAI) that enables networking software to be written independent of the switch silicon used. This allows customers and systems developers to write their software and independently pick the best switch to support it. XPliant switch SDK (software development kit) has full support of ONIE and has incorporated SAI. This enables customers to migrate from legacy switch architectures and easily adopt XPliant-powered switching solutions.
Cavium’s XPliant Ethernet switch silicon combines the highest level of flexibility and performance which is unprecedented in the networking industry. The XPliant CNX880xx family of Ethernet switches provides an unparalleled flexibility in protocol processing without compromising throughput. Combining the new XPliant switch silicon with the emerging hardware and software open ecosystem will now enable true software defined networking (SDN).
The XPliant Packet Architecture (XPA) allows programming of every element of switch packet processing increasing feature velocity and rapid deployment of differentiating features. The XPliant switch features include:
- 3.2 Tbps 32x100G Ethernet switch
- Support of 25G Ethernet Consortium
- XPliant Packet Architecture (XPA) – Enables longer switch life-cycles and avoids fork-lift upgrades
- One box, multiple products – single XPliant hardware switch optimized for multiple places in network via custom software
“Customers building cloud infrastructures are increasingly turning to open network solutions which are optimized for web-scale applications,” said George Tchaparian, CEO at Edge-Core Networks and GM of Data Center Networks at Accton Technology. “Accton is developing 100GbE data center switches based on Cavium XPliant Ethernet Switch silicon, which Edge-Core will deliver to data center, telecom and enterprise customers who require the increased capacity, performance and flexibility which XPliant silicon enables.”
“Cavium is a valued partner for Inventec and our collaboration will expand our software defined networking solutions and deliver the open networking platforms to our customers,” said Daphne Chen, Director of Network Infrastructure Design Center at Inventec Corporation. “The flexibility powered by their XPA architecture of XPliant Ethernet switch enables the innovation to meet the demands and complexities imposed by the rapidly evolving data center environment.”
Cavium is committed to providing open switch networking solutions, enabling the industry to easily migrate from legacy architectures to new efficient solutions for software defined data centers. Attendees at the Open Compute Project US Summit can visit Cavium in booth C12 and Accton in booth D22.
