It is stock Linux (Debian based), but behind the scenes, we're programming a hardware forwarding ASIC to do the actual packet forwarding. This is why we run on white-box switches and not servers, see our HCL for details:
http://cumulusnetworks.com/support/linux-hardware-compatibil...
This is how a 1U switch drawing less than 200W can forward 2+ terabits/sec. A server full of 10gig/40gig NICs would be 50x slower and draw way more power.
I prefer JunOS to IOS/NX-OS as well, but both of their CLIs are optimized for managing switches with hand-written (or PERL script written) config files. Most Cumulus customers use automation tools. We've had folks use Chef, Puppet, CFEngine, Ansible, Saltstack, as well as a few mega-scale customers who have home-grown automation tools. The idea is to use whatever you're already using to automate servers to automate the switches; often there is substantial sharing between the server automation scripts and the network automation.
The volume is quite high already, Cumulus Linux alone is managing well over 1 million 10G ports today, and we're not the entire white box OS option. Our software pricing is available on our website:
http://cumulusnetworks.com/product/pricing/
and some of our hardware partners publish price (keep in mind, this is web orders of quantity 1):
http://whiteboxswitch.com/collections/all-switches
We don't really separate the control and data planes. We don't really consider ourselves an SDN company, we enable many approaches to SDN by building very high performance fabrics that you can run your SDN layer on top of. We work closely with VMware NSX (formerly Nicira), Midokura, Nuage, and PLUMgrid. Some of our higher scale customers have their own SDN solution.
Hi Nolan, thank you for responding to my question. In my naivete I presumed support for the ASICs would end up in the Linux kernel or at least made available due to GPL requirements, but I now see another post mentioned you have a proprietary switching daemon, so I guess it extends a lot further than just driver support.
Thanks for the link; I've seen similar pricing on the Quantas before, but only from obscure online retailers, who are often well below prices from more trustworthy sources. Would you recommend whiteboxswitch.com as a reliable source?
I don't think the optics is a fair selling point however, as you can easily purchase 3rd party optics programmed to be Cisco, Juniper, etc. compatible. We currently buy Juniper coded SFP+ SR optics for <$25 from a distributor in China.
We've been working with the kernel folks on trying to get support for forwarding ASICs into the kernel, but it is probably going to take a while. For now, ASIC programming is done from userspace by a daemon we call "switchd", which observes changes in the kernel's state, and programs the hardware accordingly.
whiteboxswitch.com is a fine option, though bm-switch.com seems to have lower web pricing at the moment.
Most of our customers are concerned about support, and thus aren't interested in unsupported optics. I guess as long as Juniper doesn't find out... =)
This is how a 1U switch drawing less than 200W can forward 2+ terabits/sec. A server full of 10gig/40gig NICs would be 50x slower and draw way more power.
I prefer JunOS to IOS/NX-OS as well, but both of their CLIs are optimized for managing switches with hand-written (or PERL script written) config files. Most Cumulus customers use automation tools. We've had folks use Chef, Puppet, CFEngine, Ansible, Saltstack, as well as a few mega-scale customers who have home-grown automation tools. The idea is to use whatever you're already using to automate servers to automate the switches; often there is substantial sharing between the server automation scripts and the network automation.
The volume is quite high already, Cumulus Linux alone is managing well over 1 million 10G ports today, and we're not the entire white box OS option. Our software pricing is available on our website: http://cumulusnetworks.com/product/pricing/ and some of our hardware partners publish price (keep in mind, this is web orders of quantity 1): http://whiteboxswitch.com/collections/all-switches
But the biggest cost savings come from automating the management, and not having to buy vendor-locked optics. Compare the prices here (again, quantity 1!): $30 for a SFP+ 1M DAC cable: http://www.fiberyes.com/sfp-cable-cab-10gsfp-p1m-30 $59 for a SFP+ SR optic module: http://www.fiberyes.com/10gsfp-transceiver-axs85-192-m3 to what you're you're paying cisco or Juniper.
We don't really separate the control and data planes. We don't really consider ourselves an SDN company, we enable many approaches to SDN by building very high performance fabrics that you can run your SDN layer on top of. We work closely with VMware NSX (formerly Nicira), Midokura, Nuage, and PLUMgrid. Some of our higher scale customers have their own SDN solution.
<Disclosure: I am co-founder and CTO of Cumulus>