When Software for Open Networking in the Cloud (SONiC) —a free and open-source network operating system based on Linux— was founded in 2016, the goal was to bring high reliability and fast innovation to the routers in Azure cloud data centers. Fast forward seven years, and SONiC is at the cusp of a new era in networking.
Also positioned at that cusp is Aviz Networks, a startup focused on bringing the benefits of SONiC—such as cost, control, and choice with an eye to an AI-driven future—to customers. With abundant opportunities to partner in this new era of networking, Cisco Investments has invested in Aviz.
To learn more about the partnership, check out the video interview between myself and Aviz CEO and co-founder Vishal Shukla.
Top three takeaways
What pain point is Aviz trying to solve?
Transitioning to SONiC has a number of challenges, such as lack of support and of management tools. In addressing these challenges, Aviz aims to bring the benefits that hyperscalers have seen with SONiC to non-hyperscaler customers, while also helping to enable a new era of open-source networking. This new era has, at its heart, openness, choice, control, and the flexibility to innovate around AI apps—all while leveraging the collective strength of a large ecosystem and community. The SONiC community has over 4,000 developers, which is why SONiC has been dubbed “the Linux of networking.”
What is Aviz’s vision?
Aviz’s vision is to accelerate adoption of SONiC by making it a ubiquitous, accessible, and intelligent network operating system (NOS)—a vision Shukla says will accelerate exponentially through its partnership with Cisco. Three stakeholder groups make up the SONiC ecosystem: the open source community, customers, and partners. Serving as the glue for these three groups, Aviz offers three main product sets:
Fabric Test Automation Suite (FTAS)—the industry’s first user-defined test suite that ensures quality standards for SONiC.
Open Networking Enterprise Suite (ONES)—a purpose-built solution addressing the unique challenges of transitioning to open source SONiC.
Open Packet Broker (OPB)—deployable on any white-box switch and enabling monitoring and security tools to access network packets at a fraction of the cost.
Each of these products shares a common DNA—an openness to enable multiple integration points with different vendors, including Cisco.
Who are Aviz’s typical customers?
Aviz partners with many of the world’s leading enterprises and technology innovators. Its customers span the financial, healthcare, telecommunications, and cloud service provider industries, mostly in the Americas and Japan, and Shukla says the company is also seeing traction across smaller customers. A common characteristic is a cloud mindset and a desire to scale. Shukla predicts that, over the next decade, SONiC will become a standardized layer in networking that will enable AI-driven applications on the top or “north” side, while supporting a thriving ecosystem of ASIC and other switch vendors on the “south” side. Aviz has customers in multiple geographies, having their deployments from 5-10 switches to up to 2000+ switches with OPB and ONES.
In both its products and in its macro vision, Aviz is committed to keeping the open-source mindset alive. “If you look at the macro level, what we are enabling for customers is that culture—the mindset that they can be open, that they can be cloud-agnostic, and they can be future-looking for the AI-driven applications,” Shukla says.
That’s a vision Cisco can get behind.