European Software Developer Case Study
Business Challenge
What if the existing protocol stack is not enough?
Or features you are looking for are either missing or part of different solutions?
If your company has enough engineering resource, you may consider to develop your own protocols or monitoring features.
Or your company is developing a new network product and already decided to invest time and resources.
Challenges
Developing for a switching ASIC requires not only specific knowledge about packet processing but also access to the ASIC SDK.
Even if vendors claim openness, access usually provided only to large customers with hundreds of boxes.
Approach
However, there is an open initiative by Broadcom – Open Network Switch Layer (OpenNSL). OpenNSL is a library of Open Networking APIs that enable the
development of innovative open source networking projects on widely deployed Broadcom network switch-based systems.
Unlike a typical SDK, OpenNSL and its documentation are available without any NDA-style agreement and provided as a ready-to-use package by the hardware vendor.
This philosophy allows a developer/startup to access the API for prototyping and development on supported platforms.
Using an open API eliminates the SLA barrier, enabling the development of innovative networking projects.
Business Results
Netberg’s Broadcom Tomahawk-based switches were chosen by a European company to develop network visibility products, traffic aggregation products, and custom switch software.
Rapid feature development and the richest feature set and highest performing networking silicon in the industry allowed the creation of several brand-new networking products
in the 25G/100G Ethernet market. In less than eight months, these products already generate revenue or reducing network TCO for our partner.
Why Netberg
Netberg meets the growing demand for open network hardware based on merchant silicon.
- A wide range of products with throughput rates from 1 to 100 Gbit/s.
- Open Network Install Environment (ONIE)-enabled switches allow choice of networking software platform.
- Support for Open Networking Linux, a part of the Open Compute Project and a component in a growing collection of open source and commercial projects including CORD and Stratum.
- OpenNSL package for all Broadcom-based switches with the x86 control plane.
- High-quality hardware.
- Support the application development with examples and advices.
