Amazon joins switch open source project: or disrupt chip makers such as Broadcom
In the morning on December 15, Beijing time, the Linux Foundation announced that Amazon will contribute to an open source software called Dent, which may help provide physical stores for the Internet giant.
Dent is an operating system developed for switches, which is the hardware used to route data across a network (usually within a company or between a company and the Internet). Traditionally, this market has been dominated by large companies, such as Broadcom, which provides a large number of underlying chips, and Cisco, which sells finished assembly products.
By creating open source alternatives (which means anyone can access the software's code and contribute), Amazon and its trading partners can reduce control of these companies and product prices.
There is no indication that Amazon intends to sell switches or other hardware to the company, nor does it design its own chips for this purpose. Instead, the company is contributing to an operating system that can run on network device chips so that other companies running computing and network infrastructure can take advantage of it.
Although Amazon is experienced in running network hardware on a large scale through the market-leading AWS cloud computing business, Dent is designed to run slower than public cloud data centers, and Dent's statement did not mention any news related to AWS.
Instead, the statement refers to "remote campus locations and retail stores," which may be best suited to perform calculations on-site, with an initial focus on retail. This suggests, for example, that Dent will gain value in Amazon Go's high-tech convenience stores.
With the addition of Amazon, Dent may affect the data center network market, especially at the underlying chip level. Dent can help small chip makers competing with market leader Broadcom, as well as smaller companies in Cisco's dominated switch market.
Ultimately, this can also save costs for business buyers. Switch chip companies Marvell and Mellanox (Nvidia has announced an acquisition intention) participated in the project with Amazon, and switch manufacturing companies Delta and Wistron also participated.
Microsoft has considered how to do more with the network switches inside the data center. It came up with a Linux-based operating system called Sonic, and released the system as open source in 2016.
As a Broadcom customer, Cisco said on Wednesday that it has developed a network chip that allows other companies to use it in its own hardware products. This is due to the acquisition of Leaba Semiconductor of Israel for $ 320 million in 2016.
"We welcome competition," Broadcom CEO Chen Fuyang told analysts on a conference call when asked about Cisco's chip plans.
Dent is an operating system developed for switches, which is the hardware used to route data across a network (usually within a company or between a company and the Internet). Traditionally, this market has been dominated by large companies, such as Broadcom, which provides a large number of underlying chips, and Cisco, which sells finished assembly products.
By creating open source alternatives (which means anyone can access the software's code and contribute), Amazon and its trading partners can reduce control of these companies and product prices.
There is no indication that Amazon intends to sell switches or other hardware to the company, nor does it design its own chips for this purpose. Instead, the company is contributing to an operating system that can run on network device chips so that other companies running computing and network infrastructure can take advantage of it.
Although Amazon is experienced in running network hardware on a large scale through the market-leading AWS cloud computing business, Dent is designed to run slower than public cloud data centers, and Dent's statement did not mention any news related to AWS.
Instead, the statement refers to "remote campus locations and retail stores," which may be best suited to perform calculations on-site, with an initial focus on retail. This suggests, for example, that Dent will gain value in Amazon Go's high-tech convenience stores.
With the addition of Amazon, Dent may affect the data center network market, especially at the underlying chip level. Dent can help small chip makers competing with market leader Broadcom, as well as smaller companies in Cisco's dominated switch market.
Ultimately, this can also save costs for business buyers. Switch chip companies Marvell and Mellanox (Nvidia has announced an acquisition intention) participated in the project with Amazon, and switch manufacturing companies Delta and Wistron also participated.
Microsoft has considered how to do more with the network switches inside the data center. It came up with a Linux-based operating system called Sonic, and released the system as open source in 2016.
As a Broadcom customer, Cisco said on Wednesday that it has developed a network chip that allows other companies to use it in its own hardware products. This is due to the acquisition of Leaba Semiconductor of Israel for $ 320 million in 2016.
"We welcome competition," Broadcom CEO Chen Fuyang told analysts on a conference call when asked about Cisco's chip plans.