Comments on: Pica8: A startup taking advantage of network commoditization

By: Linux Guy

Linux Guy — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:34:38 +0000

I’ve just read everything I can about Pica8 and I’m excited. As a linux sysadmin with over a decade of experience (and an ex-googler), I can’t wait to see the open-source network software quickly catch up to the incumbent network providers. And with inexpensive gear available to developers, I expect Xorplus to because feature rich, stable and reliable real quick.
Expect LOTS of dismissals from the cisco’s, arista’s, force10′s of the world. pica8/xorplus threatens their entire business model. This commoditization of network gear has been a long time coming, especially with things like Hadoop driving up network cost to like 20% of the colo build.
Can’t wait for it to drop back down.
Pica8 has it right. I’ve held all the fancy switches in my hand. They Used to be built differently, but today its all outsourced to the lowest bidder, and pica8 is getting boxes off the same ODM assembly lines.

By: Daniel Golding

Daniel Golding — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 06:26:01 +0000

Every few years, there is a startup who tries to do this, going back at least ten years. There is always a well-baked piece of open source software that can do wire-speed routing at current peak speeds – except when it doesn’t. Low speed routing is easy and cheap already.

Ask yourself why HP hasn’t eaten Cisco’s lunch in the networking area? Its because what Cisco and Juniper charge the big bucks for is HARD.

Usually startups like this do well if they concentrate on a very specific area of functionality and make it both wirerate and inexpensive. The exit is a strategic purchase. However, generalized open source network-in-a-box is a nonstarter – especially with 15 coders.

By: Lorenz Redlefsen

Lorenz Redlefsen — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 20:51:10 +0000

I would not put products into the “commodity hardware” category simply because they use merchant silicon. System design is a hugely important, but often under-appreciated, quality.

A good analogy is the PC business, where everybody starts off with the same x86 chip. I think we’d all agree that an Apple Macintosh is not “commodity hardware”, for example — there is a huge difference between a Mac and other x86-based PCs in terms of system hardware, and that’s before you’ve even started to talk about the software differences.

Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to show this difference in a side-by-side comparison on paper, where most of the focus is on properties of the forwarding chip, e.g., table size, port count, etc.

One place to look is whether the components that are most likely to fail (power supplies and fans) are redundant and/or hot-swappable. How long can the system continue to run when a single one of these components fails?

Another thing is to just hold the hardware in your hand, just like you have to test-drive a car to actually appreciate the differences.

Full disclosure: I work for Arista, so I know what to look for in a well-designed system, but I am stating my personal opinion — I am not speaking for my employer. :)

By: Josh

Josh — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 06:57:56 +0000

Hey they are not the only ones doing it, check their virtual counter parts at http://www.vcider.com

By: Jo Maitland

Jo Maitland — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 02:09:54 +0000

Stacey, Cracking topic for a report. Now to find time to write it! :-) Will ping you when I get a chance.