Open Source At The Top Of The Rack John W. Linville LinuxCon Europe - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Open Source At The Top Of The Rack John W. Linville LinuxCon Europe - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Nov 03, 2022 435 likes •736 views

Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Open Source At The Top Of The Rack John W. Linville LinuxCon Europe 13 October 2014 John W. Linville Tux On Top Introduction Switches Today

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion

Open Source At The Top Of The Rack

John W. Linville

LinuxCon Europe

13 October 2014

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Who am I? What is this?

Who am I?

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Who am I? What is this?

What is this?

Enterprise packet switching hardware continues to be an open source hold-out in the data center. Familiar, tired, old arguments... Traditionally under-powered... Powerful, new designs on the horizon... OCP Networking... New platform for networking applications?!?!

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Who am I? What is this?

Wedge and FBOSS

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Hardware Designs Software Architecture Closed Source

Hardware Designs

Most network switches are essentially embedded systems... Minimal CPU... Limited RAM... Tiny storage...

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Hardware Designs Software Architecture Closed Source

Software Architecture

Just enough to bring-up the hardware... Proprietized OS...

Limited functionality RTOS Linux w/ minimal userland

Static system management capabilities... Proprietary upgrade mechanisms... Hardware managed solely by application!

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Hardware Designs Software Architecture Closed Source

Closed Source

Almost every network switch runs closed source software... Un-hackable, appliance-like devices... Special skills needed even if device is open... Hardware documentation is closed to the public... Outside contributions are deemed unlikely... OpenWRT is an exception??

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Better Processors Open Designs Same Old Software

Better Processors

Devices are appearing with modern CPUs... Mainstream architectures (e.g. x86 64)... Server-class CPU performance... Advanced features (e.g. virtualization)... Modern (i.e. featureful) OSes too?

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Better Processors Open Designs Same Old Software

Open Designs

Open Compute Project is driving development of open designs... Support from multiple vendors (Broadcom, Mellanox, Intel, Accton, etc)... Community participation via the OCP Networking initiative... Backing from Facebook give the effort some clout!

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Better Processors Open Designs Same Old Software

Same Old Software

Despite the efforts to change the hardware, the software stack still looks very familiar... Linux is used, but still in a limited fashion... Switch hardware managed by userland-based “SDK”... User interface provided by proprietary management interfaces... Ther are a few exceptions (e.g. Cumulus Networks)...

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Off The Shelf OSes Better Management New Applications

Off The Shelf OSes

Moving towards a standardized hardware platform enables the use

  • f standard OSes...

Less need for specialized training... Easier deployment and maintenance... More frequent security updates and bug fixes... Code is widely used and better tested...

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Off The Shelf OSes Better Management New Applications

Better Management

Running a server-class OS lets you manage your switch more like a server... Incremental updates (by package)... Standard tools (Ansible, Chef, Puppet, Thrift, etc)... Developer-friendly environment enables custom solutions...

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Off The Shelf OSes Better Management New Applications

OCP Vision

Original image:

http://gigaom.com/2014/06/18/facebook-has-built-its-own-switch-and-it-looks-a-lot-like-a-server/

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Off The Shelf OSes Better Management New Applications

New Applications

What would you do with an Enterprise switch and a server CPU? Applications have “no hop” access to tons of bandwidth... Forward deployment of network-attached infrastructure... Seems like a good place for an SDN controller? Or an NFV platform?

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Hardware Diversity Software Modeling Enterprise Vs. Flows

Hardware Diversity

What does a switch really look like? How do you talk to the registers? How do you move data? Inside-out or outside-in? It is very easy to build a switch device model that excludes lots of existing switches!

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Hardware Diversity Software Modeling Enterprise Vs. Flows

Software Modeling

There are several viable models for modeling switch devices in the kernel... Externalized vs. Internalized Transparent vs. Opaque ??? What seems to be the obvious choice may depend on your perspective...

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Hardware Diversity Software Modeling Enterprise Vs. Flows

Single-Port View

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Hardware Diversity Software Modeling Enterprise Vs. Flows

Multi-Port View

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Hardware Diversity Software Modeling Enterprise Vs. Flows

Multi-Port View w/ Dataplane Visibility

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Hardware Diversity Software Modeling Enterprise Vs. Flows

Enterprise Vs. Flows

This could be titled “Legacy Vs. SDN”...? What level of functionality is exposed? Can in-kernel software make use of the switch? How much data do we need to be able to see? Is Open vSwitch the best model?

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Start Small Be Simple Let’s Pretend Cracking A Nut

Start Small

A journey of a thousand miles... Millions of switches are in the hands of consumers today... Most of these are handled by out-of-tree code in OpenWRT... Some infrastructure (i.e. DSA) exists in the kernel already... Genericize DSA and start porting drivers...

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Start Small Be Simple Let’s Pretend Cracking A Nut

Be Simple

Enterprise-class switches are full-featured, complicated devices that do not map well to existing kernel concepts... How do we get this merged? Implement a simple, NIC-like driver... Enable existing off-loads as appropriate... Introduce new off-loads and other features at L2... ...and beyond?

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Start Small Be Simple Let’s Pretend Cracking A Nut

Let’s Pretend

It’s difficult to build a device model, without access to the devices... Existing hardware vendors are happy with the way things are... Status quo – impossible to demonstrate superior alternatives... Rocker Switch is a virtual model of a representative switch... Use Rocker Switch as a platform for prototyping!

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Start Small Be Simple Let’s Pretend Cracking A Nut

Cracking A Nut

Incumbent vendors own the status quo... Are there smaller hardware vendors on the edge of the market? Are some of them hungry enough to take a bigger risk on

  • pen source?

Is this enough to crack the market?

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Wrap-Up Questions? Contact Links

Wrap-Up

Around the world and back again... Network switches are still closed, not without reason... New hardware designs are coming, better support for open source software is possible... Open source could bring innovations in the network... But what would we do with it? And how do we make it happen? Put your money where your mouth is!

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Wrap-Up Questions? Contact Links

Questions?

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Wrap-Up Questions? Contact Links

Contact

Feel free to contact me! Email linville@tuxdriver.com

...@redhat.com ...@gmail.com ...@kernel.org

IRC linville on FreeNode Facebook as “John W. Linville”

John W. Linville Tux On Top

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Introduction Switches Today Open Opportunities New Horizons Problems Plan Of Action Conclusion Wrap-Up Questions? Contact Links

Links

OpenWRT

http://www.openwrt.org/ OCP Networking Specs And Designs http://www.opencompute.org/wiki/Networking/SpecsAndDesigns Cumulus Networks http://cumulusnetworks.com/ Centec Networks http://www.centecnetworks.com/

John W. Linville Tux On Top