A journey over the last ten years of opening access to switching ASICs. Starting with OpenFlow going through the lands of open APIs we have reached the harbours of openness. Are we there yet to build a truly open Network Operating System?
Open Source got mainstream in the world of switching ASICs. We nowadays can get open access to steer multiple terabits of packets through the network. This talk tries to cover the path that startet ten years ago with OpenFlow that tried to open up the networking world. We will pass by some more or less known buzzwords like Indigo, OF-DPA, Switchdev, OpenNSL, SAI, P4, SDK-LT and NPL. From this zoo of lower level details we will have a look at their use in Network Operating Systems (NOS) today. Finally trying to answer the question: Are we there yet?
Speakers: Tobias Jungel