Aviz Networks has introduced a new community SONiC (Software for Open Networking in the Cloud) distribution designed to cater to enterprise needs, particularly in multi-vendor hardware environments. This pre-tested, multi-ASIC distribution aims to provide businesses with an open-source SONiC option that includes production-grade support.
SONiC is an open-source network operating system that gained traction since its initial release in 2017, becoming increasingly popular among networking vendors. Despite its open-source availability, enterprises have encountered challenges with deployments across different hardware vendors, due to the lack of a comprehensive and turnkey distribution usable across various systems.
Aviz Networks, through years of deploying SONiC in diverse production environments, identified common barriers and operational challenges. To address these, they have created the Aviz Certified Community SONiC, which builds on the open-source code to support hardware from manufacturers such as Nvidia, Cisco, Marvell, and Broadcom.
The newly launched distribution is aimed at enterprises seeking a standardized network operating system (NOS) that functions consistently across different vendor switches, similar to how Linux operates across various servers. Vishal Shukla, CEO of Aviz Networks, explained that this distribution is set to become a commodity, offering seamless integration comparable to Linux.
Key Enhancements by Aviz
To overcome existing gaps in community SONiC implementations, Aviz made several improvements:
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Enhanced Routing Protocols: They implemented Free Range Routing (FRR) features that may not be uniformly deployed across different ASICs. This includes improvements for router redundancy, preventing network loops, and supporting link aggregation.
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Bug Fixes: Aviz addressed critical failures in prior deployments, such as ensuring network fabrics could handle workloads efficiently during virtual machine migrations.
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Standardized Monitoring: A software component has been developed to normalize monitoring data across various hardware, providing consistent logs and telemetry regardless of the underlying ASIC.
Validated Deployment Strategies
The Aviz distribution supports popular enterprise architectures like IP Clos and EVPN/VXLAN, which help in creating scalable and efficient network topologies. Comprehensive runbooks for data centers, edge, and AI fabric use cases have been provided to simplify deployment.
Simplifying Open Source Deployment
Traditionally, networking solutions have come as bundled packages from major vendors, but community SONiC lacked this integrated model. Aviz aims to change that by offering easy deployment options without requiring specialized SONiC knowledge. Enterprises can access downloadable builds matched to their specific hardware, ensuring a smoother setup process.
While SONiC remains free and open source, Aviz provides paid support subscriptions for enterprises, enhancing their experience with monitoring, orchestration, and overall network operations.
For more details on SONiC, visit the official page on SONiC.
