Four years after setting out to change how enterprise networks are operated with an overlay solution designed to provide a centralized management  layer atop existing infrastructure, Big Switch Networks is rolling out a new platform aimed at disrupting the entire data transportation pyramid all the way down to the hardware. The change of direction introduces many more moving parts, but has the potential to pay off in the long-run as the software-defined bandwagon gains velocity.

The product

Positioned as the startup’s flagship offering, Big Cloud Fabric is a pre-baked “Core-and-Pod” architecture modeled after the massively scalable network designs employed by the world’s largest Internet companies. In contrast to the traditional three-layer model of networking popularized by Cisco, wherein servers link up to commodity access points served by more expensive routers relaying data from the high-end switches that bear the brunt of the traffic, the Big Switch approach is open through and through. It’s also much flatter, and presumably more robust as a result.

In Big Cloud Fabric, the “Core” part of the equation is made up of one or more programmable controllers used to manage the “Pod” portion, which consists of commodity rack-mount switches manufactured by hardware partners. The connective tissue linking the two is Switch Light,  a homegrown thin switching software based on Linux that abstracts away the details of the underlying hardware to simplify administration and allow for faster provisioning of network resources.

Organizations can order the platform with one of two versions of the operating system. The standard P-Clos Edition is designed to work exclusively with physical switches, which is fine for non-virtualized applications but limits the number of use cases that can be addressed with the solution. Customers that require more flexibility can instead go with the Unified P+V Clos Edition, which extends the manageability offered by Switch Light to the logical switches used by virtual machines.

Other than that, the two variations share the same feature set. Both support 10G and 40G connectivity, provide compatibility with OpenStack and enable “headless mode high availability,” which means that the network continues to operate even if all all controllers go offline since policies are programmed directly into the switches that handle requests.

The offering is made all the more compelling by the fact that it ships as an integrated whole, which saves organizations the hassle of cobbling together the individual components on their own. That lowers one of the biggest barriers to software-defined networking adoption: complexity.

The accessories

Big Cloud Fabric is joined by a new release of Big Switch’s monitoring tool that introduces deeper packet matching along with support for the  high-speed Trident II Ethernet switch from Broadcom and Dell hardware.

The two vendors are among the two dozen companies with which the startup announced new or expanded partnerships  on the occasion of the product announcement. Also on the list is hyperscale server maker Quanta, Microsoft, a number of OpenStack distributors including Red Hat and perhaps most notably, In-Q-Tel, the venture capital arm of the CIA.

Image via Big Switch Networks