Open source routing protocols, white boxes, and open source OSes

White boxes

• Accton/Edgecore
• Delta Networks
• Quanta Cloud Technology

Brite boxes

• Dell

OSes

• Amazon Dent OS
• AT&T dNOS (whitepaper)
• Big Switch Switch Light NOS (builds on Open Network Linux)
• Cumulus Linux
• Dell OS10 Base / OpenSwitch
• Facebook FBOSS
• Gigamon GigaVUE-OS
• IP Infusion OcNOS
• Indigo
• Juniper Junos
• Microsoft SONiC
• Open Network Linux
• Pica8 PicOS
• SnapRoute FlexSwitch
• Stratum

Routing protocols

• BIRD
• exaBGP
• FRR - Free Range Routing
• GoBGP
• OpenBGPD
• Quagga
• XORP

This presentation contains a nice overview of the various options.

In the early days there were a couple of other choices:

• GateD
• ZebOS

Useful references

• http://packetpushers.net/virtual-toolbox/list-network-operating-systems/
• https://www.networkworld.com/article/2919599/cisco-subnet/clearing-the-fog-around-open-switching-terminology.html

Resources for IEEE 802

The following is a collection of resources for IEEE 802 and related organizations.

• 802tsn.org - IEEE 802.1 TSN unofficial page.
• AVnu Alliance

Tutorial and other useful presentations

• 802.1AS
• Cloud scale data center design by Microsoft (contains cable length information)

IEEE 802.1 projects

The following is a list of IEEE 802 and IEEE 802.1 projects.  At some point I hope to add a few lines providing an executive summary of each project.  This list doesn't include projects that are revisions (-REV) and projects that are corrigenda (-Cor-x), except in cases where the revisions were actually adding significant new functionality.

IEEE 802 projects

• 802 - Overview and Architecture
• 802a - Playpen Ethertypes
• 802b - Registration of object identifiers (OIDs)
• 802c - Local MAC address usage
• 802d - Allocation of uniform resource name (URN) values
• 802E - Privacy considerations for 802 technologies

IEEE 802.1 projects

• 802.1B - LAN/MAN management
• 802.1D - MAC bridges
• 802.1E - System load protocol
• 802.1F - Common definitions and procedures for IEEE 802 management information
• 802.1G - Remote MAC bridging
• 802.1H - Bridging of Ethernet v2 to IEEE 802 LANs
• 802.1j - Managed objects for MAC bridges
• 802.1p - Expedited traffic classes and dynamic multicast filtering
• 802.1Q - MAC bridges and virtual bridged LANs (formerly virtual bridged LANs)
• See also IEEE 802.3ac
• 802.1s - Multiple spanning trees
• 802.1t - 802.1D maintenance
• 802.1u - 802.1Q maintenance
• 802.1v - VLAN classification by protocol and port
• 802.1w - Rapid reconfiguration (RSTP)
• 802.1X- Port-based network access control
• 802.1y - 802.1D maintenance
• 802.1z - 802.1Q maintenance
• 802.1aa - 802.1X maintenance
• 802.1AB - Link layer discovery protocol (LLDP)
• 802.1AC - MAC service definition
• 802.1ad - Provider bridging
• 802.1AE - MACsec
• 802.1af - MACsec key management
• 802.1ag - Connectivity fault management
• 802.1ah - Provider backbone bridging
• 802.1aj - Two-port MAC relay
• 802.1ak - Multiple registration protocol (MRP)
• 802.1ap - MIB definition for VLAN bridges
• 802.1aq - Shortest path bridging
• 802.1AR - Secure Device Identifier
• 802.1AS - Time Synchronization
• 802.1Qat - Stream reservation protocol (SRP)
• 802.1Qau - Congestion notification
• 802.1Qav - Credit-based shaper
• 802.1Qaw - Data driven connectivity fault management
• 802.1AX - Link aggregation
• 802.1AX-REV - Distributed resilient network interconnect (DRNI)
• 802.1Qay - Provider backbone bridging - traffic engineering
• 802.1Qaz - Enhanced transmission selection (ETS) and DCBX
• 802.1BA - AVB systems
• 802.1Qbb - Priority-based flow control (PFC)
• See also 802.3bd
• 802.1Qbc - Remote customer service interfaces (RCSI)
• 802.3bd - MAC control frame for PFC
• 802.1Qbe - Multiple I-SID registration protocol (MIRP)
• 802.1Qbf - PBB-TE segment protection
• 802.1Qbg - Edge virtual bridging (EVB)
• 802.1Qbh - Bridge port extenders (replaced by 802.1BR)
• 802.1AXbk - Link aggregation protocol addressing
• 802.1AEbn - 256-bit encryption
• 802.1Qbp - Equal cost multiple paths (ECMP)
• 802.1AXbq - Distributed resilient network interconnect (replaced by AX-REV)
• 802.1BR - Bridge port extenders
• 802.1ASbt - Time synchronization - Enhancement and performance improvements
• 802.1Qbu - Frame preemption
• See also 802.3br - Interspersed express traffic (IET)
• 802.1Qbv - Enhancements for scheduled traffic -- time-aware shaper
• 802.1AEbw - MACsec extended packet numbering
• 802.1Xbx- MACsec key agreement extensions
• 802.1ACby - Ethernet over MOST
• 802.1Qbz - Enhancements to bridging of 802.11
• 802.1Qca - Path control and reservation
• 802.1CB - Frame replication and elimination for reliability (FRER)
• 802.1Qcc - SRP enhancements and performance improvements
• 802.1Qcd - Application VLAN TLV
• 802.1ARce - Secure device identity - SHA-384 and P-384 elliptic curve
• 802.1CF - OmniRAN network reference model and functional description of access network
• 802.1AEcg - Ethernet data encryption devices
• 802.1Qch - Cyclic queueing and forwarding
• 802.1Qci - Per-stream filtering and policing
• 802.1Qcj - Automatic attachment to PBB services
• 802.1Xck - 802.1X YANG data model
• 802.1CM - TSN profile for fronthaul
• 802.1Qcn - VSI/VDP extensions for NVO3
• 802.1Qcp - 802.1Q YANG data model
• 802.1CQ - Multicast and local address assignment protocol
• 802.1Qcr - Asynchronous traffic shaping
• 802.1CS - Link-local registration protocol (LRP)
• 802.1AR-REV - SHA-384 and P-384 enhancements
• 802.1ACct - Support for 802.15.3
• 802.1ABcu - LLDP YANG
• 802.1CBcv - FRER YANG & MIB
• 802.1Qcw - TSN YANG for Qbu, Qcv, Qci
• 802.1Qcx - CFM YANG
• 802.1Qcy - EVB VDP extensions for NVO
• 802.1Qcz - Congestion isolation
• 802.1DA (60802) - Profile for industrial automation
• 802.1CBdb - Extended stream identification
• 802.1DC - QoS provisioning for non-bridge systems
• 802.1Qdd - Resource allocation protocol
• 802.1CMde - Enhancements for fronthaul interface
• 802.1DF - TSN profile for service provider networks
• 802.1DG - TSN profile for automotive networks
• 802.1ABdh - LLDPv2 - Support for Multiframe Protocol Data Units
• 802.1Qdj - TSN configuration enhancements
• 802.1AEdk - Privacy enhancements for use with MACsec
• 802f - Ethertype YANG
• 802.1ASdm - Hot standby
• 802.1ASdn - Time Synch YANG
• 802.1DP - TSN profile for aerospace
• 802.1Qdq - Tspec - Shaper parameter settings for bursty traffic requiring bounded latency
• 802.1ASdr - Time Synch inclusive terminology
• 802.1ASds - Time Synch support for half duplex MAC
• 802.1Qdt - PFC enhancements
• 802.1DU - Cut-through forwarding
• 802.1Qdv - Cyclic queueing and forwarding (CQF) enhancements
• 802.1Qdw - Source flow control
• 802.1Qdx - Credit shaper YANG
• 802.1Qdy - MSTP YANG

Networking cheat sheet

The following are some useful rules of thumb:

• Forwarding rate calculations for Ethernet
• Packets per second (pps) = link speed in bps / ((size+20)*8)
• Preamble + IFG is 20 bytes.
• Gbps x 1.5 = Mpps @ 64 bytes (actual value is 1.488).
• 1.5 Mpps @ 1 Gbps
• 15 Mpps @ 10 Gbps
• Latency
• 5 usec per km (one way).
• 10 usec per km (RTT).
• Speed of light in medium = 2x10^8 m/sec, i.e. 0.67 x c.
• 67.2 nsec @ 10G for 64 bytes (including preamble + IFG).
• Data in flight
• ~1300 bytes / 100 m @ 10 Gbps (RTT).
• Recommended default sampling rate for sflow
• 1 in (link speed in Gbps x 1000).
• 10G, 1 in 10,000
• 100G, 1 in 100,000
• 400G, 1 in 400,000
• Can use higher sampling rate if utilization is low.
• Backoff in sampling is not recommended.  Instead keep track of discards and report them.

Resources from standards organizations

The following are resources from various standards I have followed or participated in over the years.

• IEEE 802 
• IETF
• OCP wiki
• T11

Encapsulations for NVO3

There are several encapsulations that have been proposed for use with NVO3.  In no particular order, they are:

• NVGRE
• VXLAN
• STT
• VXLAN-GPE
• Geneve
• LISP (and its Layer 2 counterpart which is similar to VXLAN)
• GUE
• L2-over-MPLS (over GRE) -- L2VPN
• L3-over-MPLS (over GRE) -- L3VPN
• L2TPv3

Which ones survive is to be seen.

Decoding an IEEE 802 project number

IEEE SA has a number of standards committees, e.g. 802, 1588, etc.  IEEE 802 is one of the standards committees that is focused on the development of standards for LANs and MANs (local and metropolitan area networks).  Within IEEE 802,  802.1 is the HILI (higher layer interface) working group.  It deals with standards that are MAC layer independent.  In contrast, other working groups in the IEEE 802 work on MAC layer specific standards.  For example, 802.3 work on standards for Ethernet, 802.11 works on standards for WiFi, and 802.16 works on standards for WiMax.  IEEE 802.1 is also responsible for standards designated 802, indicating that they apply to all IEEE 802.1 working groups.  An example is the IEEE 802 Overview & Architecture standard.

In IEEE 802, projects and the subsequent standard are typically denoted IEEE 802.NXy.

• IEEE indicates that it is an IEEE standard.
• 802 indicates it was developed by the LAN/MAN Standards Committee.
• N is numeric and denotes the working group in which the standard was developed.  For instance, 802.1 indicates a standard developed in the "dot 1" working group which deals with MAC layer independent standards.  N is omitted only for standards that span all working groups which are typically architecture documents.
• X is one or more uppercase letters.  It is optional.  If present, it indicates the base standard.  Some working groups, e.g. IEEE 802.3, have just one big document.  In that case, the uppercase letters are not needed and are omitted.  In the case of IEEE 802.1, there are multiple base standards, e.g. IEEE 802.1D, IEEE 8021.Q, IEEE 802.1AB, etc.
• y is one or more lowercase letters.  Lowercase letters indicate that this project is an amendment to some base standard.  Prior to circa 2006, the base standard of the project was not clear because the concept of using X along with y was not in use; either X or y was used.  So, earlier, we had standards like 802.1p and 802.1ah (which indicated they were amendments to a base standard, but not the base standard to which they applied, which in these cases were 802.1D and 802.1Q respectively).  Later, X and y were used together so we now have projects such as 802.1Qbg and 802.1ASbt (which are amendments to 802.1Q and 802.1AS respectively).

Sometimes,  a project or a standard will simply be called IEEE 802.NX-REV, indicating that the project is a revision of a standard IEEE 802.1NX previously developed.  For example, we have projects such as 802.1Q-REV and 802.1AX-REV.

Finally, there are corrigenda projects which are called IEEE 802.1NX-Cor-M.  The 'Cor' indicates that it is a corrigendum.  The '-M', M being numeric, indicates the number of the corrigendum in case more than one is needed.

If a project is a new base document, it is published independently and remains an independent document forever.  If the project is an amendment, it is initially published as an independent document and then subsequently rolled into the base document when it is revised.  IEEE requires that revisions be done at a certain interval before new amendment projects are authorized.

Where to get IEEE 802 standards?

This post is specifically about standards by the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee.

All published IEEE 802 standards are available for free 6 months after they have been published via the IEEE Get Program.  To get access them within that 6 month period, they would have to be purchased.  One place to get them is Techstreet.  Techstreet also sells IEEE standards that were not developed by IEEE 802, e.g. IEEE 1588.

A CD/DVD containing all of the standards is provided to all attendees at IEEE 802 meetings for their personal use.

For unpublished standards and works in progress, you would have to go to the working group of interest which you can get to from the main IEEE website.  Unfortunately, accessing these will usually require a userid/password.  If you don't attend the meetings, you might be able to get that information from the chair of the working group, provided a reasonable justification is made.

Tutorials presented at the plenary meetings are archived here.

About this blog

The blog is a collection of information related to computer networking.  Specifically, it is information about various topics that I have been exposed to during my career.  I will also have posts that serve as a reference desk or collection of links to various pieces of information.

You can send me feedback either by leaving a comment or by emailing me.  My email address is available in my profile.