In this article we will look at some white box networking vendors which made their place in the top 10 and changed the networking landscape drastically. Understand their strengths and features.

List of  Top 10 White Box Networking Vendors

Big Switch Networks

Big switch networks was founded in 2010. It was known for its Floodlight SDN controller which got open sourced in 2012. Big cloud fabric is a major product from big switches. It offers Virtual private cloud (VPC) based logical networking, delivering automation of networks and visibility to both on premises and multiple cloud workloads. It provides consistent network management and capabilities for operations management. Some of the key customers of big switch networks are Verizon, VMware, Visa and T-Mobile.

Cumulus

Cumulus was founded in 2010. Cumulus is a pioneer in open network operating systems for Whitebox switches. It allows the automation, customization and scale of data center networks. It provides 100+ hardware platforms including industry standard open compute platform (OCP) and ONIE (Open networking Install Environment). Cumulus is the first white box software provider to add support for Minipack, Facebook’s latest OCP compliant reference design.

Pica8 –

Pica8 was founded in 2009. Key product offering from Pica8 is PICOS, an open networking software. PICOS offers tightly integrated / coupled control planes, giving network operators non-destructive control of their enterprise’s networks; deep and dynamic traffic monitoring and attack mitigation in real time. PICOS provides functionality called CrossFlow which tightly couples the L2/L3 control plane and classic ‘SDN’ control plane for real time network operations. Some of its key customers are General Electric, stratedge and Edge core.

Plexxi –

Plexxi was founded in 2010. Key product is Plexxi switch which enables customers to build public and private clouds. This product post acquisition is getting integrated with HPE composable Fabric ecosystem. Plexxi supports composable infrastructure which can be composed or recomposed as per the need based on network loads. Some of its customers are Arrow electronics, SafeGuard Scientifics and Jefferies Financial group

Pluribus –

Pluribus was found in 2010. Its key product offering is Netvisor ONE Operating system which is layer 2/3 switching optimized for meeting requirements for distributed enterprise and service provider networks. It supports peer-to-peer architecture, and eliminates the need for an SDN controller and simplification of overall network architecture. It supports open compute platform (OCP) and open network install environment (ONINE) standards. Some of its key customers are Cloudflare, Steelcase and Tibco.

NoviFlow –

It was founded in 2012. Its key product is NoviWare network operating system software which can be deployed on network switches, WAN IP/MPLS routers, network appliances, and high bandwidth forwarding planes. It is compliant to OpenFlow 1.3/1.4 and 1.5 protocol versions. Its key customers are Fortinet and Lumina networks.

Arrcus –

Arrcus are manufacturers of white box switches running ArcOS latest generation switches that leverage Jericho-2 chipset. It supports multi-tenancy at scale, open integration across multiple ODM vendors. It offers hardware agnostic platform which is largely deployed in data centre fabrics, large scale peering/ edge deployments, and cloud.

Kaloom –

Kaloom is a software solution for white boxes which are meant for hyper scale and distributed data centres. It supports integrated routing and switching and enables developers to develop new code to add new features and services. It has low latency multi datacenter fabric, self-forming and self-discovery capabilities, zero touch provisioning of virtual networks and automated software upgrades.

Snaproute –

Snaproute was found in 2015. It created an open-source software FlexSwitch to the open compute project (OCP). It runs on industry standard white box switches, provides all management and networking functionality to simplify networking stack. It automate network provisioning

iPinfusion –

iPinfusion offers OcNOS industry first full featured network OS for white box it supports advanced capabilities such as extensive switching and routing protocol support. MPLS and SDN. It has hybrid, centralized or distributed network support; scalable, modular high performance network support and a robust data plane.

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What is White box Switching?

Basics of SDN and Open Flow Network Architecture

Today we look more in detail about Which box switching or white box networking , its features, advantages , use cases etc.

White Box Switching 

Due to the complexity of traditional networks, evaluation of white box switching (or white box networking) has come as an ideal solution for hyper scalable data centres. Some of the limitations of traditional networks are:

• Complicated protocols to grow networks
• Manual configurations have limitations 
• VLANs do not scale and cannot be reused across data centres
• STP is unstable, comes with proprietary extensions which makes is incompatible, and lot of ports are blocked
• Troubleshooting issues is a pain as skilled personnel required to assist here
• The network becomes the stopper for business most of the times

White box switching is a new form of networking model where hyper scale data centres adopt commoditized networking by using white box switches providing investment protection by avoidance of vendor lock-in. 

• White box switch is independent of hardware and it can use the software from any other provider. This allows them to build and set up flexible network design for their network and switches.
• White box switches are most popular in SDN (Software Defined network). White box switches can be programmed to create routing tables and route connections using OpenFlow protocol or another south bound API in SDN environments.
• White box switches are low in cost as compared to traditional switches and popular for both large data centres and small networks.
• White box switches have high port density. 
• A white box switch comes preloaded with minimal software or may be sold as a bare metal device. These switches can be customized to meet organization specific business and networking requirements.
• White box switches are used to support a wide range of open-source management tools such as OpenStack , Puppet and Chef. 
• Most white box switches adopt ‘open’ Linux based NOS (Network operating system) which is designed to be separated or segregated from the underlying hardware, letting the user change hardware box or NOS as per the will. They rely on an operating system which might come preinstalled to integrate layer 2 / layer 3 topology and support basic networking features. 
• These are commodity / cheaper switch boxes built on merchant silicon by Taiwanese manufacturer known as original device manufacturers (ODM) such as Accton, Quanta and Alpha etc. Small start-up companies like Cumulus networks, Big Switch networks, Pica8 etc. buy bare metal switches from Taiwanese ODMs and load their operating system and sell these switches as white boxes. Like Cumulus uses Linux operating system, Pica8 uses PicOS and Big switch uses Switch light OS. 

Advantages of White Box Switch 

• They are simple to operate
• They are flexible and independent of underlying hardware
• Limited features by high performance is guaranteed
• Fabric architecture enable multiple switches to act as single unit
• Segmentation and security of network virtualization
• API driven network automation 

Use cases of White Box Switching

• Big companies like Facebook, Amazon and Google need massive deployment of switches in their large data centres. The number of ports requirement is quite high , white box switch fit perfectly due to high port density 
• Web scale companies looking for flexibility and openness in their switch platform where white box switches fit swiftly

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OpenFlow vs Netconf: Which is the Best Protocol to Program?

Basics of SDN and Open Flow Network Architecture