DENT

· Dent issues “Arthur”, its First Code Release that Delivers an Open, Simplified Networking Operating System for next-generation retail and campus networks

· Linux Foundation announces inaugural Dent general members committed to delivering enterprise-grade, disaggregated networks through an open ecosystem

San Francisco, December 17, 2020 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced Arthur — the first code release of Dent, a project to enable the creation of a Network Operating System (NOS) for Disaggregated Network Switches in campus and remote enterprise locations. Since its December 2019 launch, several companies have joined DENT as general members, including Innovium, Arcadyan, Aviz Networks, and Alpha Networks who are joined by Dent premier members Amazon, Delta Electronics Inc, Marvell, NVIDIA, Edgecore Networks, and Wistron NeWeb (WNC).

The Arthur release – aptly named after Arthur Dent, the protagonist character of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy– uses the recently released Linux 5.6 Kernel and leverages SwitchDev to simplify integrations, eliminate complex abstractions and SDK change management, and support existing Linux tool chains. In addition to providing the industry’s widest range of hardware options, the Arthur release includes over 25 key features to enable enterprise infrastructure teams to safely transition to disaggregated networks.

“With the Arthur release, we’re witnessing the makings of an open network operating system, control plane and management plane that will transform how enterprises address their distributed edge challenges,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, Edge and IoT, at The Linux Foundation. “The DENT community has grown quickly and executed on this first major code release at a time when the entire industry is rethinking the future of retail and campus environments.”

The networking industry is moving away from customized, proprietary solutions for telecom, cloud and enterprise data center markets in favor of open standards. However, these open advancements have failed to meet the specific needs of distributed enterprise edge networking, such as a simplified networking OS stack that is low cost and Linux-based. DENT enables an open community to build this solution without complicated abstractions. It uses the Linux Kernel, Switchdev, and other Linux-based projects to allow developers to treat networking ASICs and silicon like any other hardware. This simple disaggregated Linux/SwitchDev-based switch ultimately simplifies integration across the ecosystem and encourages application developers to adopt this new standard.

For more information, please visit dent.dev

Premier Member Quotes

“Open networking is the future, and Delta is proud to be a part of the momentum with the Dent project,” said Honda Wu, vice president of Solutions and Open Source at Delta. “Our goal is to support the initial users of Dent with our deep knowledge and expertise in networking.”

“As a leading provider of open networking solutions for data centers and enterprises, Edgecore is pleased to see the release of dentOS for next-generation retail and campus networks through the open community ecosystem. Disaggregated hardware and open source enables more enterprise and campus network customers to enjoy the benefits of open networking.” Michael Ward, vice president, Business Development, Software, Edgecore Networks.

“As a leading silicon provider in access networking, we remain committed to supporting industry standard application interfaces on our switch portfolio, allowing our customers to leverage the full network operating software ecosystem. Dent is a key component to our offerings,” said Gavin Cato, vice president of product management and marketing at Marvell. “The Arthur release is running on multiple 1G and 10G platform deployments incorporating Marvell’s feature-rich Prestera^® Ethernet switches. This milestone demonstrates our commitment to bringing innovative solutions for automated and personalized experiences within the borderless enterprise across the smart edge and retail networking.”

“Dent’s Arthur release is a major step towards accelerating the open source networking revolution that NVIDIA has spearheaded for years,” said Amit Katz, vice president of Ethernet Switches at NVIDIA Networking. “Dent OS, an open source network operating system, leverages the wide Linux ecosystem to provide freedom of choice for modern data centers and edge deployments. By providing the industry leading ASIC and software innovations such as FRRouting, SwitchDev, and several other kernel networking contributions, we look forward to pushing the advancement of Dent.”

“The Arthur release incorporates intelligent wireless and wireline capabilities critical to any enterprise’s decision to embrace open software architecture,” said Larry Lee, executive vice president and general manager of the Networking Business Group at WNC. “We and other industry leaders supporting Dent worked closely together to tackle distributed switching for the initial retail use case.”

General Member Quotes

“With more than 17 years of Tier-1 Operators networking experience, Arcadyan is glad to join Dent and looking forward to making contributions to the software ecosystem,” said Jenny Yang, director at Arcadyan.

“Aviz Networks recently joined the Dent project and the Open Verification Lab (OVL) initiative in partnership with Keysight providing test expertise and a vendor neutral test facility for the Dent community. Aviz and Keysight will continue to lead the Dent test working group to ensure the highest quality for future Dent releases,” said the Aviz Networks team.

“As a leading provider of high performance and innovative switch silicon solutions that have been deployed at scale by multiple top customers, Innovium is a big champion for open, standards-based and disaggregated networking solutions. We are excited to be part of Linux Foundation’s open-source Dent project, which aims to deliver those benefits combined with a compelling TCO,” said Amit Sanyal, vice president of Marketing at Innovium.

About the Linux Foundation

Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation is supported by more than 1,000 members and is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation’s projects are critical to the world’s infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, and more.  The Linux Foundation’s methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org.

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pr@dent.dev

Linux Foundation open ecosystem enables low cost, standardized network solutions for campus and remote offices

San Francisco, Calif., Dec 13, 2019 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced the launch of DENT, a project to enable the creation of Network OS for Disaggregated Network Switches in campus and remote enterprise locations. Under the Linux Foundation, DENT hopes to unify and grow the community of Silicon Vendors, Original Design Manufacturers (ODM), System Integrators (SI), Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) and end users to create an ecosystem of contributors around a full-featured network operating system. The initial use case will focus on the retail industry with premier members including Amazon, Cumulus Networks, Delta Electronics Inc, Marvell, Mellanox, Wistron NeWeb (WNC).

Networking solutions today are customized for each market and each use case, whether telecom, cloud or enterprise data center markets. They use proprietary silicon (ASIC) for packet processing and closed operating systems to enable workloads and applications on a network switch. Disaggregation is the new way for Open Networking and has been well accepted in data centers and telecom infrastructures.  However, in enterprise networking– especially with distributed locations– nothing currently exists for Enterprise Edge properties that fall outside the traditional public cloud as they have very specific requirements to take advantage of disaggregation and the networking stack.

Remote campus locations and retail stores require a simple networking OS stack that is low cost and Linux-based. DENT is an Open Source project that will enable the community to build this solution without complicated abstractions. It uses the Linux Kernel, Switchdev and other Linux based projects to allow developers to treat networking ASICs and silicon like any other hardware. It simplifies abstractions, APIs, drivers and overheads that currently exist in these switches and on other open software.

With new technologies like 5G, Edge, IOT, AI, the next generation of remote buildings, retail stores and enterprises will have a lot of innovative workloads and services close to the applications and users. Having a simple disaggregated Linux/SwitchDev-based switch to power the remote offices will enable an ecosystem of apps that simplifies and standardizes integration across the ecosystem.

“The Linux Foundation will establish a neutral home from the start for DENT – vital for community infrastructure, meetings, events and collaborative discussions,” said Arpit Joshipura, GM of Networking at The Linux Foundation. ”Our goal is to create an open source, open participation technical community to benefit the ecosystem of solution providers and users focused on network operating system, control plane and management plane use cases across a variety of industry solutions.”

For more information, please visit www.dent.dev

Additional Quotes

“Delta is excited to participate in DENT and applauds the Linux Foundation for tackling the challenges in enterprise and campus networking,” said Honda Wu, Vice President of solutions and open source at Delta. “We stand ready to support with our deep knowledge and expertise in networking.”

“We are excited to have the Linux Foundation join with us to grow the community and accelerate this open source networking revolution,” said Amit Katz, vice president of Ethernet switches at Mellanox Technologies. “DENT OS is a native Linux Network Operating System which leverages switchdev, a Linux driver for Ethernet switch ASICs that Mellanox pioneered.   Switchdev exposes the unique hardware innovations in the Mellanox Spectrum family of Ethernet Switches. DENT promotes network disaggregation, which benefits customers by eliminating vendor lock-in and allows hardware vendors to compete on a level playing field, where the very best switch ASICs and systems can win by delivering the highest ROI possible.”

“As a provider of intelligent wireless and wireline solutions, including those for distributed enterprise networking, Wistron NeWeb Corporation (WNC) fully embraces open software architecture,” said Larry Lee, EVP and GM of the Networking BG at WNC. “We are delighted to partner with the Linux Foundation and other industry leaders for this DENT project. WNC will first tackle distributed switching for the initial retail use case. We see great potential for this full-featured networking OS and look forward to working together in this partnership to improve network efficiency and provide conveniences for campuses and other remote distributed networking markets.”

“Open source is in Cumulus’ DNA and we’re excited to be the first software platform to contribute to DENT. We have a deep history with the Linux Foundation, from driving the FRRouting project, the most contributed open source routing project in the world, to our contributions to ONIE, EVPN, among others,” said Partho Mishra, President and Chief Product Officer at Cumulus Networks. “Cumulus is the natural choice to support DENT given our deep roots with networking contributions to the Linux kernel, our latest support for SwitchDev, and our expansive reach in the data center with more than 2,000 customers.  We are looking forward to partnering on the DENT project to extend open source in kernel networking capabilities from the data center to the campus edge.”

“As a leading silicon provider in access networking and a firm believer in customer choice through disaggregated hardware and software, Marvell is excited to bring our technology leadership to Linux Foundation’s DENT project as a founding member,” said Gavin Cato, vice president of product management and marketing at Marvell Semiconductor, Inc.  “Marvell’s innovative switch portfolio lays the foundation for the transformation of access networks and the edge into an intelligent future while creating significant total cost of ownership advantages for customers. We are well positioned to be a game changer in retail networking and the smart edge, bringing a holistic approach to the ecosystem.”

 

About The Linux Foundation

Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation is supported by more than 1,000 members and is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation’s projects are critical to the world’s infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, and more.  The Linux Foundation’s methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org.

 

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