Mystery open source switching company claims top-of-rack price edge (was Re: Pica8 - Open Source Cloud Switch)

Lin Pica8 pica8.org at gmail.com
Sat Oct 30 19:05:23 UTC 2010


Buy you glasses and a book about network engineering ;) !

> Meanwhile, I'm failing to see a product

http://www.pica8.org/products/pronto-3780

> source code

http://sourceforge.net/p/xorplus/home/

> or more to the point, any operational aspect at all in any of these ad-spam posts.

Pica natively runs Linux and the code is Open Source. So, you can not
only run 3rd party code (like with Cisco AXP, Juniper Junos SDK or
Arista EOS), but also modify the Networking Stack according to your
needs that is a very interesting feature from an Operational point of
view and something that is not possible with
closed source OS like EOS, JUNOS and IOS.

Vyatta tries to make also an Open-Source Networking product but the
bottleneck is *the performance*.

The target is to attack Cisco by the bottom. Especially, there are a lot
of small operators (like the members of the NANOG) who are
interested by low-cost gear. To be more precise, Cisco doesn't loose
any significant Market Share due to the second market (used equipment)
that is worth many billions each year according to the UNEDA (United
Network Equipment Dealer Association).

They can't buy the latest Cisco gear but they are still used to Cisco,
because they buy refurbished Cisco gear.

Pica8 provides its first significant breakthrough there : to have an
access to the latest networking gear for the price of the refurbished
one. That is *$ 200 per 10G port* or half the price of the closest
competitor, Blade Network Technologies.

We definitely believe that a new networking product should only focus
on the Capex in the first place then think about the Opex in a
second step (OpenFlow).

Mail : pica8.org at gmail.com


2010/10/30 gordon b slater <gordslater at ieee.org>:
> On Sun, 2010-10-31 at 03:28 +0900, Randy Bush wrote:
>> >> plonk
>> > ... goes your custom
>> > Marketing by annoyance, smoke, and mirrors? Gotta love the strategy
>>
>> do not buy from spammers
>
>
> ...goes without saying.
>
> I'm just wondering if this a guerilla launch for some new Oracle product
> or project, or what, exactly? I'm _very_ confused.
>
> Maybe Paul K. can clear it all up, but apparently he's out of the office
> right now.
>
> Meanwhile, I'm failing to see a product, figures, source code, or more
> to the point, any operational aspect at all in any of these ad-spam
> posts.
>
> Consider this a formal request for root-plink, before we have a major
> corp try to sell us a database solution or proprietary kernel via the
> list.
>
> <sigh>
>
> Gord
> --
>
>
>




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