Pica8 Puts Innovation on Display
Pica8 at the Open Networking Summit demonstrating its multivendor 100G switch fabric using the NEC ProgrammableFlow SDN Controller. This solution employs the PICOS network operating system running on core and edge switches from Dell EMC, NEC and Edgecore.
“With PICOS, customers use familiar CLIs to easily program any network to support a wide variety of solutions, including enterprise upgrades, hybrid clouds, disaster recovery, real-time network analytics, and content delivery,” Pica 8 explains.
The company says that white-box solutions now feature higher specs, “bulletproof” reliability, and global support. As a result, Pica8 says, such solutions have been adopted by businesses in various verticals.
“These next-gen white-box solutions are surpassing the limitations that legacy L2/L3 network equipment, architecture, and support have historically placed on their users,” Pica8 says in this piece. “As a result, enterprise companies are now rediscovering their ability to differentiate in their own markets based on new technology that also slashes their networking equipment and operational costs.”
In this July 2016 piece, industry analyst Zeus Kerravala said that white box switches at that point were “ready for a broader range of companies to use – not just large enterprises.” He noted that software-defined networks is helping popularize the idea and adoption of white boxes.
“Think of a traditional switch as a Swiss Army knife with a number of features that you may or may not use,” Kerravala continued. “A white box is more like a hunting knife where it has no spoon and fork but is optimized for one specific task. A white box is the SDN equivalent of that and has capabilities that are geared towards new workflows and where the SDN industry is headed.”
Edited by Maurice Nagle
