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back to article White box, anyone? Big Switch pumps Big Cloud Fabric updates as pretty Big Deal

Big Switch Networks has updated its Big Cloud Fabric to support hyperconverged (HCI) and software-defined storage (SDS) products so they don't need to use shonky old proprietary networking hardware. Big Cloud Fabric (BCF) v4 came out a year ago with enhanced VMware support, multi-container networking, and scaling up to 128 …

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  1. Nate Amsden

    "lower cost than traditional networks from Cisco, and much easier to manage"

    Companies have been selling stuff claiming that for probably 20 years now, and hasn't been enough. Kind of a worn out selling point.

    (mostly non cisco network equipment user for the past 17 years myself)

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  2. Mayday
    Meh

    I'm a network guy, have been for ages.

    And I get a little confused with some of these "white-box" pushers claiming their software can run on some generic switch hardware and save the world.

    My questions -

    The hardware still needs R&D, production etc. Switching in ASIC/hardware always trumps in CPU. So I still need to buy hardware made by someone don't I? Here's an example of another vendor doing just that. I see a whole load of boxes that would already come with their own software on them as well as a whole swag of caveats: https://cumulusnetworks.com/products/hardware-compatibility-list/

    If $vendor can control the hardware as well as software on it (a la Ciso/Juniper etc) then aren't we almost always going to have a better time that running someone's software on someone else's hardware? I'd prefer to ring (J)TAC etc and say, "your switch is broken" and they fix it than ring whoever and have them tell me that version 1.23423423 hotfix 89766 might not run on $whiteboxswitch.

    If I have a very large scale setup where throwing a cheap box in the bin when it fails is more cost effective than downtime or a support contract with a vendor then I can see an advantage but not much elsewhere.

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    1. Tom Samplonius
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      Re: I'm a network guy, have been for ages.

      "If I have a very large scale setup where throwing a cheap box in the bin when it fails is more cost effective than downtime or a support contract with a vendor then I can see an advantage but not much elsewhere."

      In large environments (Amazon, Google), you'd go so far as to write your own OS for your switches. Google has been doing this for at least a decade now.

      But why does anyone find this strange? We've been doing this on PCes for 30 years. Intel makes a reference design, some integrator assembles the hardware, and then you install Windows 10 on it.

      In the case of whitebox switches, the core is mostly Broadcom. Broadcom is the Intel of the network world. Broadcom creates reference designs. Integrators assemble whitebox switches from Broadcom reference designs. Network OS vendors test their OS on various whitebox switches. Yes, the support experience may be fragmented. But the Network OS may be sold via a reseller, who also sells the hardware and can provide support on both together as a unit.

      And why would you do this? Well, a Juniper ACX5048 switch/router is about $35,000. The Juniper ACX5048 is Broadcom based. You can get the same hardware from a whitebox vendor for about $6000. You can get a network OS from various vendors, but IP Infusion is probably the comparable to JunOS and it is about $6000. So $12,000 versus $35,000. If you only need data center features, you can get a cheaper NOS.

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