[AusNOG] pluribus networks

[Doug Youd]

Hi Alex,

Firstly, hopefully the email address + signature gives it away, but: full disclosure, I’m a Cumulus SE covering AU/NZ. Infact, I think we may have spoken at one point.

Pluribus hardware is actually fairly unique; it’s basically a reasonably beefy x86 server and broadcom Trident2 ODM switch fused together. It also has a relatively high bandwidth link between ASIC and the server.

All the switch HW Cumulus currently has on the HCL is more of a traditional switch design; Trident/Trident+/Trident2 ASIC + low-power PPC/x86 CPU daughter card and roughly 1g between the two (mostly a limitation on the Trident’s control plane path).

The (relatively) beefy server in the pluribus makes it feasible to do L4-7 inspection / NAT / LB etc, that the Trident can’t do on its own. Trade-off is COGS on those boxes is relatively high, compared with the mass-produced, traditional ODM switches. It could also be argued, “why not just have a 1RU server w/ 40g NIC(s) connected to a 1RU traditional switch?”. I haven’t played with Pluribus sw, so I can’t comment on that side of it.

… but obviously, I work for a vendor, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

<olive-branch>If you/anyone else wants to discuss Cumulus in more depth, happy to take it off-list.</olive-branch> :)

Regards,

Douglas Youd | Cumulus Networks
cumulusnetworks.com
M +1 (415) 712-5606

On Feb 1, 2015, at 6:32 PM, Alex Samad - Yieldbroker <Alex.Samad at yieldbroker.com> wrote:

> Hi
>  
> Any one seen these in the wild or using them http://www.pluribusnetworks.com/. Wondering how different they are from cumulus setup?
>  
>  
>  
> Alex
>  
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> AusNOG at lists.ausnog.net
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