PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Pica8®, Inc., the leader in open systems for software defined networking (SDN), today announced that it is the first to offer a bare metal network operating system that delivers strategic technology in Broadcom’s Trident II chipset. Key features in this chipset drive scalable solutions seen as crucial factors in accelerating adoption of software defined data centers.
By utilizing the full capabilities of Broadcom’s Trident II chipset, which is incorporated in high-performance top-of-rack (ToR) network hardware, PicOS enables customer choice in the overlay technology deployed in highly virtualized environments. As much as possible, CPUs need to operate unencumbered to provide optimum application performance, and overlays free up CPU resources, thereby better scaling virtualized infrastructure. Although VXLAN is a well-known overlay feature available in the Trident II, PicOS is the first network OS to support another overlay method called L2oGRE, L3oGRE and NVGRE which are also available in the Trident II chipset.
“Users are looking to SDN to increase network flexibility and unlock new business agility. Startups like Pica8 are leveraging an open approach to networking to deliver more value faster than legacy giants,” said Stu Miniman, Senior Analyst at Wikibon. “Pica8 is leveraging the latest Broadcom Trident II merchant silicon for scalable performance and protocol flexibility.”
PicOS also leverages Trident II to deliver the ability to mimic memory allocation schemes that help Linux-based systems scale. Here, PicOS allows Trident 2 devices to logically combine the traditional switching and router memory (FIB) with the memory allocation for OpenFlow support (TCAM). PicOS now enables OpenFlow driven networks to scale to hundreds of thousands of flows, ensuring high scalability to meet the demands of ultra-high density, multi-tenancy environments.
PicOS is the first network operating system that enables customers to seamlessly and easily migrate from conventional networking to SDN. PicOS delivers SDN solutions through Pica8’s adoption of Open-vSwitch (OVS). Switching and routing support is key for easy integration and adoption into existing network topologies, while OVS provides the SDN functionality and northbound interface that DevOps users expect. PicOS offers a comprehensive and flexible configuration management environment from either a Linux shell or feature-rich command line interface (CLI).
“At Pica8 we’ve worked hard to deliver class-leading software features like OVS and OpenFlow 1.4, but that doesn’t mean we’ve neglected the underlying hardware support,” said Lin Du, Vice President of Engineering and co-founder at Pica8. “Our support for L2GRE and advanced memory allocation features in the Trident II shows that we take a holistic approach to network switching performance.”
PicOS is optimized to run on bare metal switches and is also available in pre-loaded systems from Pica8. To order systems that support Trident II, review your options here.
About Pica8, Inc.
Pica8 pioneered open networking with PicOS™, the first network operating system that enables customers to easily migrate from conventional networking to software-defined networking (SDN) using commodity bare metal switches. PicOS supports all major routing and switching protocols and delivers SDN solutions through Pica8’s adoption of Open-vSwitch (OVS). Pica8 can provide PicOS, switching hardware or both in a fully integrated package as part of an end-to-end data center SDN solution, and makes adopting SDN easy with a Starter Kit that enables deployment in hours rather than months. Pica8 is a global company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. For more information, visit www.pica8.com or follow @pica8 on Twitter.
