Operating System 10 - Network Operating System by Dell

Dell announced the launch of the initiative for the development of a modular Operating System 10 that became known as Operating System 10 (OS10).

Operating System 10

Dell was one of the first manufacturers to offer their customers solutions Communities white box . The company supplies almost two years Rackmount Switches with the ability to download third-party network operating system. The customer can choose from a list of supported operating systems from Dell partners - Cumulus, Big Switch, Pluribus or IP Infusion. Now, a major vendor focused on developing its own platform.

Dell is not the first of the major producers, who decided to create a similar product. In December last year, Juniper announced the release of disaggregated Junos.

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The new operating system, applications and services will be separated from the underlying platform. Dell plans that OS will become a strategic product for the company and will be adapted not only to work on switches, but in the long term and server solutions and storage systems.

Operating System 10 (OS10) consists of two components:

• Basic module "unmodified" Linux distribution with open source software, which Dell offers free together with their switches. The module includes the SAI (Switch Abstraction Interface) interface of the Open Compute Project (OCP), which serves as a "language of communication between the Network Operating System 10 and chipset, switch and allows you to program the switches more granular way". OCP is developing SAI together with Broadcom, Mellanox and other vendors included in the project.
• Applications modules run on top of a base module and include the implementation of the network functions of traditional L2 / L3 layers. The Operating System 10 also supports the ability to run third-party applications and standard Linux tools. Supports L2 / L3 protocols included in the OS10 Premium package.

According to Tom Burns, vice president of the Dell the Networking and the Enterprise Infrastructure, "the separation of applications from the basic module will allow customers to buy only the necessary functionality, depending on the application. Operating System 10 (OS10) can also be the basis for the virtual functions within vCPE".

Dell is positioning Operating System 10 (OS10) for use in large data centers. The first release of the system will focus on the application as a Network Operating System 10 for the switch, but the goal is to expand the capabilities of the platform. "Our vision is tocreate a software-managed data center (Software the Defined the Data Center, the S the DDC) and the transfer of most of the features on the program level".

The company plans to start selling Operating System 10 (OS10) basic module in March, and a premium package of applications - in the third quarter of 2016.

How will the creation of Operating System 10 (OS10) existing Dell partnership?
At the moment, Dell is working with Cumulus, Big Switch, Pluribus and IP Infusion in this direction.

Creating Operating System 10 (OS10) will not affect the existing partnerships. Network Operating Systems 10 of our partners focus on different areas of application. For example, Big the Switch specializes in products for network monitoring and building cloud infrastructures, while Cumulus will be attractive to customers who require greater opportunities for customization of the operating system under Linux.

Tom Burns, Vice -President of Dell Networking and Enterprise Infrastructure
According to analyst Strategy Group is the Enterprise, "Customers who prefer Cumulus or other partner platforms from Dell, will be able to further expand the software on switches from other manufacturers. It Operating System 10 (OS10) does not support third-party equipment (at least for now)".