Welcome & Kickoff to Networking Track

Author: Rindra Sunar & Barak Gafni, Project Co-Leads, OCP Networking Collection: 2023 Global Summit - Networking

Summary

The OCP Networking track opens with project co-leads Rindra Sunar and Barak Gafni introducing the state of the OCP Networking project, welcoming new steering committee representative Shu Wang from Meta, and providing a comprehensive recap of the year's activities and contributions. The project's mission is to facilitate innovative open networking hardware and software for hyperscale, large enterprise, and telco network solutions through collaboration with the wider OCP ecosystem. Monthly meetings are held on the second Monday of each month at 10 AM Pacific.

The project maintains five active sub-projects: ONIE (Open Network Install Environment, led by Michael Shych from NVIDIA), SAI (Switch Abstract Interface, led by Rita Hui from Microsoft), ECS (Enterprise Connectivity Solutions, led by Jack Redpath), NIC Software (led by Willem de Bruijn from Google and Jakub Kicinski from Meta), and ONL (Open Network Linux, transitioned to maintenance mode). Key 2023 contributions include SAI versions 1.12 and 1.13, a NIC Software core offload spec, Enterprise Edge Gateway base and design specs (contributed by Amazon, Celestica, and AWS), and educational content from Edgecore and Stordis.

The contribution process has been updated to a hierarchical three-tier model: HW Base Specification (architectural framework with coarse alignment), HW Design Specification (design-specific with fine alignment and detailed architecture), and Product Specification (implementation-specific with detailed implementation). This approach encourages design reuse and allows contributions at any tier independently. The co-leads also propose further disaggregation of switch hardware by modularizing the NPU component as a potential new sub-project area.