One month late news – OpenNSL from Broadcom.

It’s a pity that we missed such a great announcement – Broadcom is bringing opportunities to open networking world with Open Network Switch Library (OpenNSL) available on GitHub.

OF-DPA is here for a while for those who wants to develop a scalable implementation of OpenFlow 1.3 on Broadcom switch devices, and now the same became possible with traditional L2/L3 switching.

What does it mean?

Our Intel silicon development initiative awarded us with several good contracts with developers of a specific network application, like network TAP.

Now it is possible to develop total L2/L3/OpenFlow switching solution on Broadcom silicon (with the aim to Tomahawk) with open-source base! And without patent trolling threat.

OpenNSL driver is available for Netberg Aurora 720 and Aurora 620 switches on request.

Check this installation guide for more info.

That’s why Bare Metal Switches (BMS) are even more important for rapid innovation pace in networking world – you don’t need to pay for the features you don’t need in proprietary OS. You can develop your set of features suitable for your unique environment or even unified Linux distribution for all your servers and switches.

What are the most exciting points about Open Network Switch Library (OpenNSL)?

1. It is available right from GitHub.
2. It supports Trident+, Trident 2 and Tomahawk silicon.
3. It’s available for PowerPC and x86 architectures – load Fedora/Ubuntu/Open Networking Linux on top of box and GtG.
4. OpenNSL also supports the new open-source Switch Abstraction Interface (SAI), which can be found in a published specification by the Open Compute Project, and is targeted at forming a common, hardware-agnostic, unified API for Ethernet switches. Nice feature for Microsoft-based cloud hosters.
5. OpenNSL supports open version of the  BroadView™ instrumentation set of features that Broadcom introduced several months ago as part of its Tomahawk™ switches. BroadView provides network administrators with a more in-depth look at the network’s performance – and the ability to optimize on-the-fly.