CodingInfra

Me too! I was happy to see Werner Vogels echo this as well, along with soliciting a better term on twitter.

This is not mainstream. I forget which OFC this was first presented at, but the Google presenter said they had ~120 employees dedicated to this project. Most companies don't have Google's talent or resources to implement something equivalent. Everyone is quick to reference Google, but can you tell me 2 other commercial customers (non-research) who have deployed OpenFlow at scale - probably not. ;-) Operators who are doing this today are the exception.

Going back to Linux, fact is using Linux on a bare metal switch today is like using Slackware in 1995. The need for a more turn-key Linux distro, with better apps (better routing, telemetry, ...etc) is needed to compliment white box hardware today. For a long time the HW has been the limiting factor since most merchant PFE platforms supported <50k FIB entries. Now with 1M+ (on chip) around the corner, SW quality and scale will need to improve accordingly.