Barefoot Networks Adds Go-to-Market Partners to Growing Ecosystem
PALO ALTO, CA--(Jan 17, 2017) - Barefoot Networks, which launched in June 2016, and recently announced total venture funding of more than $150 million, announced today partnerships with Taiwan-based network switching equipment firms Edgecore Networks and WNC to bring systems based on the company's groundbreaking Tofino chip to market starting Q1, 2017.
Tofino, the world's fastest 6.5 Tb/s Ethernet switch chip with a fully P4™ programmable pipeline, removes the last barrier to full network programmability -- the "closed" forwarding plane -- allowing those building and running networks to code the desired behavior of the packet processing devices on their network -- down to the packets flowing on the wire. Barefoot, which leapfrogged long-established network silicon leaders by putting Tofino in its customers' hands in Q4, 2016, will extend its lead as its new partner companies bring the technology to market.
The companies plan to announce new systems that leverage the Tofino Ethernet switch silicon family, the first fully programmable networking silicon and, at 6.5Tb/s (6.5 terabits/second), the fastest Ethernet networking chips ever brought to market, to speed development and availability of innovative new switching products.
"Edgecore Networks is delighted to partner with Barefoot Networks to offer our customers open network switches based on Barefoot's Tofino 6.5 Tb/s Programmable Ethernet Switch series," said Loren Staley, CTO of Edgecore Networks. "Our expertise as a leader in open networking, combined with the industry's fastest and P4 programmable switch silicon, will deliver new capabilities to our data center, telecom and enterprise customers. Edgecore will offer two systems based on Barefoot's Tofino silicon -- Wedge100BF-32X, a 32x100GbE switch, and Wedge100BF-65X, a 65x100GbE switch -- with evaluation units available in Q1, 2017."
"WNC is excited to announce the availability of its Barefoot Networks Tofino-based switch series," said Dr. Gerry Liu, Senior Vice President, Global Business Development, WNC, an industry leader in the design and manufacturing of advanced communication products. "Barefoot Networks' delivery of Tofino, along with the growing ecosystem around the P4 programming language, unlocks new opportunities for the networking industry. We are building OSW1800, a 1RU 48x25GE+6x100GE system and a OSW6500 2RU 65x100GE system, for availability in Q1 and Q2, 2017 respectively."
"For the past 20 years, network switches and routers have been built from 'fixed function' silicon, which means we've had to live with the features picked by chip designers," said Martin Izzard, CEO and Co-Founder, Barefoot Networks. "Chip designers don't build networks. So instead, Barefoot is putting its customers in charge. From now on, the features and protocols supported by switches, routers, load-balancers and firewalls will be decided in software, written by the equipment vendor or network owner. We're delighted to count these innovators as charter partners, and to work together to liberate network designers from the limitations of fixed-function networks."
Network owners and developers have exacting specifications in mind in designing their networks. Those specifications cannot be built into a device when it's manufactured, but nor could they ever be programmed in at the network design stage by network owners. Barefoot was first to break through that two-decades-long limitation, giving developers the ultimate freedom to create the network they want, rather than designing around limitations of existing technology.
Availability
Barefoot's Tofino chip has been sampling since Q4, 2016.
Barefoot will be presenting at Networking Field Day on January 18, 2017, 1:00-3:00pm PT, in Palo Alto. For more information, see link. Barefoot is also presenting at Disaggregate: Networking, an invitation-only technical conference for engineers with an interest in open and disaggregated networking solutions, on January 24, 2017 in Menlo Park.
About Edgecore Networks
Edgecore Networks Corporation is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Accton Technology Corporation, the leading network ODM. Edgecore Networks delivers wired and wireless networking products and solutions through channel partners and system integrators worldwide for data center, service provider, enterprise, and SMB customers. Edgecore Networks is the leader in open networking providing a full line of 1GbE, 10GbE, 25GbE, 40GbE, 50GbE, and 100GbE OCP accepted switches and open access network products that offer choice of NOS and SDN software for data center, telecommunications, and enterprise network use cases. Headquartered in the Hsinchu Science Park in northern Taiwan, Edgecore Networks was established in 2004 and formally spun-off in 2010 into an independent subsidiary responsible for global branded business from the Accton Technology Group (www.accton.com). For more information, please visit: www.edge-core.com
About WNC Corporation
Wistron NeWeb Corporation (WNC) is an industry leader in the design and manufacturing of advanced communication products. With strong R&D and high-volume production capabilities, WNC consistently introduces innovative technologies covering a range of products including: DBS outdoor units, satellite/digital radio, networking devices (IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac), 4G mobile devices, small cells, set-top boxes, digital home devices, automotive electronics, IoT products, RFID and NFC solutions, and various types of mobile-device/cellular-phone/LDS antennas. WNC's mission is to provide its worldwide customers and partners with superior products through premium ODM/JDM design, manufacturing, logistics, and after-sales services. For more information, please visit: www.wnc.com.tw.
About Barefoot Networks
Barefoot Networks launched in 2016 after two years of developing the most programmable and -- at 6.5Terabits/second -- the fastest switches ever built; twice as fast as the previous on record. By enabling organizations to define the network data plane in software, Barefoot empowers network owners and their infrastructure partners to design, optimize, and innovate to meet their specific requirements and gain competitive advantage. In combining the P4 open-source programming language with fast programmable switches, Barefoot has also created an ecosystem of compilers, tools, and P4 code to make P4 accessible to anybody. Barefoot's founders -- Nick McKeown, Martin Izzard, Pat Bosshart, and Dan Lenoski -- bring the company more than 100 years of experience in building the fastest and biggest networking systems in the world. Backed by Google Inc., Goldman Sachs Principal Strategic Investments, Alibaba, Tencent and by premier venture capital firms Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Andreessen Horowitz, Barefoot Networks is headquartered in Silicon Valley. For more information, visit http://www.barefootnetworks.com.