EDITOR’S QUESTION
networks that scale to
support large numbers of
servers with virtualisation
and containers.
MICHAEL KAGAN,
CTO, MELLANOX
TECHNOLOGIES
They are also deploying smarter and
more open networking at the Edge,
in stores, cars, factories and homes to
allow important decisions to be made at
the Edge of the network and within the
network, in real time. A big part of these
faster, smarter and more open networking
solutions are Open Ethernet switches
plus SmartNICs and I/O Processing Units
(IPUs) that run or integrate with open-
source solutions.
Advanced customers leverage Open
Ethernet switches with advanced control
plane and telemetry options, like the
Mellanox Spectrum family.
he traditional model of
a data centre – where
the network merely
transmits all data to
a central server for
processing by the regular
CPU – can no longer keep up.
T
More and more data processing is
happening at the ‘Edge’ and closer to the
users and mobile devices. At the same
time, more data storage and processing
are moving to hybrid clouds, where
workloads move between private data
centres and the public cloud.
In response, enterprises and telcos
are switching to a more ‘cloud-like’
open networking model, running fewer
protocols and building large leaf-spine
32
Issue 10
Mellanox pioneered the Open Ethernet
approach to network disaggregation with
multiple families of Ethernet switches
supporting a wide range of open network
operating systems, including SONiC –
Software for Open Networking in the
Cloud – which is a fully open sourced NOS
for Ethernet switches, first created by
Microsoft to run Microsoft Azure cloud
networking and now managed by the
Open Compute Project (OCP).
Mellanox is making SONiC available and
accessible and more easily supported for
tier two cloud providers, telcos and large
enterprises that want to embrace open
source technologies and leverage the R&D
investments of hyperscaler cloud titans in a
vendor-supported networking environment.
These Mellanox switches also support
other network operating system (NOS)
choices including Cumulus Linux, Mellanox
Onyx and multiple Linux-based options.
Open networking support gives customers
the power to choose the best open-source
software and run it on the fastest, most
innovative and most flexible switches, so
they benefit from the bigger cloud players’
experience and contributions to scalable
networking, both in the data centre and
out at the Edge. ◊
OPEN
NETWORKING
SUPPORT GIVES
CUSTOMERS
THE POWER
TO CHOOSE
THE BEST
OPEN-SOURCE
SOFTWARE AND
RUN IT ON THE
FASTEST, MOST
INNOVATIVE AND
MOST FLEXIBLE
SWITCHES.
www.intelligentdatacentres.com