HP unveils OpenSwitch, a Linux-based open source network operating system, and a developer community
Context & Ripple Effects
HP is completing the move it started in February, when it began selling Linux-based open-source switches built by Taiwan's Accton — those boxes needed a network operating system, and OpenSwitch is now that layer, released as open source with a developer community attached to grow it. The May ConteXtream acquisition for SDN and NFV shows the same quarter-long push to own the software side of networking rather than just the silicon.
First-order effects
- Buyers of HP's Accton-built switch line get an open, Linux-based NOS instead of a proprietary one, and the new developer community becomes the channel through which the OS gains features HP doesn't have to write itself.
Second-order effects
- Microsoft's decision five months later to open-source its SONiC switch components and submit them to OCP signals rivals concluded the same thing — that switch software was heading toward shared, open codebases — forcing traditional network OS vendors to compete against free.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, network operating systems disaggregate from switch hardware entirely — the way HP structured OpenSwitch plus merchant silicon anticipates — with value shifting to whoever runs the developer community, and enterprise Linux projects like OpenELA's source-code release showing the same open-fork playbook spreading across infrastructure software.
The trend: Networking is following computing's earlier path of splitting proprietary OSes from commodity hardware into open-source alternatives stewarded by vendor communities.