Features & Benefits of White Box Switches

May 14
11:09

2016

paul L walker

paul L walker

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The white box switches and their emerging trend in the current enterprise driven market. These switches are very helpful due to their multiple benefits. The article mainly talks about, how these switches are meeting up ever growing data demands.

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Switches that are utilized in the off-the-shelf routing hardware,Features & Benefits of White Box Switches Articles in the forwarding plane of the SDN is known as White box Switch. White-box switching has st gained attraction in today's networking environments. The application-focused networking companies’ find white-box switches technology very compelling and flexible. These switches have the ability to customize the operating system in order to provide high performance to your business.

 White box switch represents the foundational element of  networking ecosystem that is required to pick and choose the elements to realize their SDN objectives. These relays on operating system that come already installed or can be acquired from a software seller to integrate with basic networking features. White box switches are a subset of explicit SDN network operating system. These act as  servers, offering low cost network software features.

The most common OS for these switches is Linux-based operating system. As   open and free Linux tools available various administrators, you can customize the devices according to your needs. While the traditional routers generate and maintain their own forwarding and routing tables, a white box switch comes pre-loaded with software to be sold as a bare metal device. These are just the blank standard hardware that represents the foundational element of the networking ecosystem.

Benefits of White Box Switch

  • High Flexibility, as their main function is to meet the data demands.
  • These are helpful to provide efficiency and productivity to the business.
  • Lower Operating Cost
  • Lower Capex Methods
  • Less Costs Than Equivalent Speed Switches.
  • Whitebox switches are open networking switches.
  • The SDN controller is accountable for centralizing the network.
  • White box switching software can be easily attainable through any reseller or partner directly.
  • They are helpful in avoiding lock-in.

Because of all these benefits, white box switching has become a number one choice of the large scale operators.  These sites are straight forward, simple and provide fast solutions to deploy the data center or in the access network.

White box is often used interchangeably with britebox switches. A white box switch differs from a bare metal switch in the context that it comes with a predefined operating system. It's still an open switch because the OS and the hardware are not integrated. In Short, as a customer, you are having a package deal that includes a bare metal switch and an operating system. The Linux based operating system is   common for these switches because there are many open and free linux tools available to customize the needs of the devices.

The biggest advantage here is that switches can be customized to meet the specific requirements of the organization. The bottom line is that white box switches have the prospective to disrupt the customary Ethernet switch market. You have to choose your network router or white box switch based on your requirements and purpose.