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Everything in the Cumulus distribution except switchd is opensource (According to sales people anyways, and seems true so far, been browsing some python source

Everything in the Cumulus distribution except switchd is opensource (According to sales people anyways, and seems true so far, been browsing some python source on our switches), switchd is using information in the Linux kernel to program/configure Broadcom and Mellanox ASICs. Their contributions to the Linux kernel and the FRR routing package is not insignificant. I hope Nvidia is going to keep allowing Cumulus to support Broadcom ASICs and keep upstreaming their development efforts. Disclamier: The company is work for is a small but happy Cumulus customer.

kijiki 6y ago
Cumulus co-founder and original switchd author here. Mellanox sells switches with Broadcom silicon, so certainly in the short and medium term there will be no changes there. Long term is harder to say. It is possible that once Mellanox/Nvidia's ASIC portfolio is sufficiently complete they'll stop adding support for newer competitor ASICs, but I have no special insight there. Thanks for using Cumulus, glad to hear you're having a good experience with it!
- carlhjerpe 6y ago
  May i ask about your thoughts regarding switchd now that Mellanox has been pushing Switchdev quite hard and Broadcom SAI (and i guess SAI could be "plugged" into the kernel just as switchd with some "glue" (netlink) so we don't have to modify userspace?). It seems like the actual "programming ASIC" importance at least for Mellanox Spectrums is less of a USP by every new kernel release, i still see value in the support, packaging and sponsoring development though.
  - kijiki 6y ago
    switchd living in userspace was in large part a result of the highly proprietary NDA's ASIC SDKs. Mellanox is making small (and welcome) steps in opening up by putting some functionality into their switchdev driver, but if you want a full feature set in 2020, you need their userspace SDK, which means switchd. SAI, like OFDPA and OpenNSL before them (and a few more, can't even keep track anymore) are giant closed-source userspace binary blobs that Broadcom released to try (and fail) to mollify folks who want open-source networking. If you're serious about feature set and performance, there is unfortunately still no alternative to the proprietary NDA'd SDKs.
- dogma1138 6y ago
  Any plans of a community/free or a SOHO edition?
dogma1138 6y ago
Open source and being freely available (not necessarily FOSS compliant) are different things. Currently there is no way for you to say download or build cumulus Linux to run it on your own hardware without buying that access afaik. Checking their site again today seems to confirm it the only thing they have available is a VX appliance you can deploy in the cloud as a demo. I think with NVIDIA behind them they might have a business model that would allow them to release CL openly or at least in the form of a community/light edition for small scale use. I would love a reliable DD-WRT like option for switches especially since SOHO grade managed switches are becoming crappier by the day with more and more of them going into cloud managed and licenses. This is becoming a problem with NAS as well if you want a cheap Ethernet based storage you pretty much only have WD MyCloud which requires internet access to access your drive on your local network. There are probably some hacks around it but these things are becoming more and more prevalent.

kijiki 6y ago

Cumulus co-founder and original switchd author here. Mellanox sells switches with Broadcom silicon, so certainly in the short and medium term there will be no changes there. Long term is harder to say. It is possible that once Mellanox/Nvidia's ASIC portfolio is sufficiently complete they'll stop adding support for newer competitor ASICs, but I have no special insight there. Thanks for using Cumulus, glad to hear you're having a good experience with it!

carlhjerpe 6y ago
May i ask about your thoughts regarding switchd now that Mellanox has been pushing Switchdev quite hard and Broadcom SAI (and i guess SAI could be "plugged" into the kernel just as switchd with some "glue" (netlink) so we don't have to modify userspace?). It seems like the actual "programming ASIC" importance at least for Mellanox Spectrums is less of a USP by every new kernel release, i still see value in the support, packaging and sponsoring development though.
- kijiki 6y ago
  switchd living in userspace was in large part a result of the highly proprietary NDA's ASIC SDKs. Mellanox is making small (and welcome) steps in opening up by putting some functionality into their switchdev driver, but if you want a full feature set in 2020, you need their userspace SDK, which means switchd. SAI, like OFDPA and OpenNSL before them (and a few more, can't even keep track anymore) are giant closed-source userspace binary blobs that Broadcom released to try (and fail) to mollify folks who want open-source networking. If you're serious about feature set and performance, there is unfortunately still no alternative to the proprietary NDA'd SDKs.
dogma1138 6y ago
Any plans of a community/free or a SOHO edition?

dogma1138 6y ago

Open source and being freely available (not necessarily FOSS compliant) are different things. Currently there is no way for you to say download or build cumulus Linux to run it on your own hardware without buying that access afaik. Checking their site again today seems to confirm it the only thing they have available is a VX appliance you can deploy in the cloud as a demo. I think with NVIDIA behind them they might have a business model that would allow them to release CL openly or at least in the form of a community/light edition for small scale use. I would love a reliable DD-WRT like option for switches especially since SOHO grade managed switches are becoming crappier by the day with more and more of them going into cloud managed and licenses. This is becoming a problem with NAS as well if you want a cheap Ethernet based storage you pretty much only have WD MyCloud which requires internet access to access your drive on your local network. There are probably some hacks around it but these things are becoming more and more prevalent.