Experiences with commercial NOS vendors in white box space

Wed Nov 30 15:48:49 UTC 2022

Good day.

I'm curious to hear from those with direct, hopefully in-production,
experience in using a commercial network operating system vendor along
with white box switches. I'm specifically looking for operators in the
service provider space, rather than data center or enterprise. I'm
largely focused on Jericho2/Qumran2 based devices, with what would
likely be modest feature requirements. We currently use MPLS with RSVP
to build automatic paths, but don't do anything specific for traffic
engineering. Segment routing isn't a requirement for today. Currently
use more traditional forms of MPLS services for customer L2 and L3
VPNs, but are investigating a transition to EVPN. Automation is very
much important to us, as are routing security features. Based on
research, and use of vertically integrated Jericho-based switches, we
aren't concerned about QoS as our needs aren't super complex. I guess
I'm largely saying that we don't expect the ASIC to be the weak point
in our use case, but rather the NOS or the nature of support from the
vendor.

I'm aware of IPInfusion and their OcNOS product, but the CLI and
config syntax feels dated. I feel like I've been ruined by Cisco RPL,
Juniper policy-statements, and Arista RCF and expect I would find
wanting more than what route-map syntax has to offer. Can I accomplish
the same complex routing policies via route-maps that I can with more
modern solutions, and I'm just assuming it's limiting? Is it fair to
say that even if I can achieve the same functionality, that route-maps
are the poorer choice when it comes to the human interaction aspect?

I know of Arrcus, but don't know much more than I can see on their
website. Edge-core has an interesting reference in its Open Networking
Solution Guide on their website in which they position Arrcus for core
applications and IPInfusion for access and aggregation. All of which
could be meaningless based on the varied definitions and expectations
of what a core network is and does. Is it feature rich or just a set
of fast LSR P-routers? The Edge-Cor guide also identifies Exaware and
Capgemini, both of whom I know little about. Are there viable SP
focused NOS vendors that I haven't touched on?

Thanks in advance for any reply, be it on-list or off-list.

Regards,
Graham