Asterfusion SONiC

Network Operating System

Open Source
Production-ready
Easy to Use 

Asterfusion SONiC

  • A ready-to-use Enterprise SONiC Distribution for both campus and data centers
  • The ONLY commercial SONiC NOS on the market that supports campus access layer 2/3 switches
  • One stop support for full software stack plus hardware
  • A feature rich SONiC software support multiple merchant switching silicon platforms
View Feature Spec

SONiC (Software for Open Networking in the Cloud) is a free and open network operating system based on Linux and developed by Microsoft which nowadays has attracted a large number of industrial chain partners, forming a comprehensive SONiC ecosystem.

• Containerization
The container-based architecture enables users’ containers (applications) such as SNMP, to be upgraded without data plane downtime.

• Portability
Switch Abstract Interface (SAI) allows ASICs from different ASIC vendors to support SONiC. 

• Scalability
Enterprise users can easily insert new components, third-party, proprietary or open-source software, and customize SONiC according to their needs. 

• Visibility
Open Source-Oriented Network Operating System with Visible Source Code and No Security Vulnerabilities.
visit azure.github.io/SONiC/

Why Asterfusion SONiC – AsterNOS ?

Asterfusion is the only supplier utilizing Enterprise SONiC to provide exceptionally adaptable, dependable, and scalable systems for data centers and campus networks.

Asterfusion has officially joined the SONiC community at its launch, becoming one of the earliest cloud network companies to take part in the SONiC community. Upholding the soul of open-source and openness, Asterfusion proactively contributes to the community by providing an industry-ready Enterprise SONiC on a full range of SONiC-based white box switches. Compared to the community version, the commercial SONiC-based AsterNOS offers more comprehensive features and user-friendliness. At the same time, Asterfusion can flexibly customize and develop the required software functions for our customers.

Now, AsterNOS is able to smoothly run Marvell Teralynx, Octeon,Prestera, Intel Tofino and Mellanox, which is our value-add to assist users who want to utilize innovative features on today’s new switch chips . Additionally, Asterfusion is the world’s first supplier to run SONiC NOS at the access layer of the campus network, which is another great value to facilitate the transformation of a more open, secure campus network.

Asterfusion also combine SONiC with P4 and DPU together to provide highly flexible, scalable and portable networks.

Based on
Standard Linux SONiC and SAI

Based on
Standard Linux SONiC and SAI

SONiC and its associated SAI (Switch Abstraction Interface) are open source projects that have flourished in open cloud networking field in recent years. They are built on top of standard Linux systems and leverage the latest technologies such as containers and in-memory database.

AsterNOS built with SONiC as its kernel benefits from its open architecture, modular design, high reliability, and flexibility to expand new features in control plane.

visit azure.github.io/SONiC/

Programmable Interface

Programmable interface

AsterNOS provide RESTful API as first order management interface for all its functionalities as well as legacy CLI interface. By using the RESTful API, the switch systems can be fully controlled and managed by northbound controllers or any newly developed applications.

Cloud Integration

Cloud Integration

When deploy switches with AsterNOS alongside Asteria Network Controller (AFC), cloud administrators can centralized manage and control all the switch units in the Leaf-Spine topology as a single virtual switch.

When using standalone, AFC provides AsterNOS zero touch deployment, network topology discovery, one-click underlay and overlay service configuration, trouble shooting, and etc.

When integration with cloud controller, AFC works as OpenStack neutron plugin so that OpenStack compatible management stack will manage all the switches in the same context as computing and storage being managed.

About Asteria Fabric Controller (AFC)

Underlay & Overlay Features

Underlay & Overlay Features

AsterNOS provides standard underlay features including L2 and L3 switching, routing protocols, L3 ECMP & WCMP, MC-LAG and etc.

Asterfusion SONiC NOS support MP-BGP EVPN with VxLAN 

AsterNOS implements MP-BGP EVPN with VxLAN and L2 population, it provides VxLAN tunnel auto provisioning and an optimized ARP proxy, also it provides the high availability in the EVPN including MC-LAG, fast recovery on data plane and EVPN graceful restart.

Multiple Switch Chip Support

AsterNOS supports several data center switch chips in a single software release.
In the release of 2021Q2, AsterNOS officially support the following

Falcon

Asterfusion®
CX-M

Teralynx

Asterfusion®
CX-N
Tofino

Asterfusion®
CX-T
Spectrum

Mellanox
SN2700/SN3700

An article Let You Know about our Enterprise SONiC Distribution “AsterNOS”

Read more

Further know about Asterfusion SONiC network Operating System”AsterNOS”​

Read more

Frequently Asked Questions

What the feature that Asterfusion SONiC NOS support?

It built on top of standard Linux systems and with SONiC/SAI as its kernel is characterized by fully open structure, completely decoupled hardware and software, loosely unionized software modules, high reliability architecture, and easy functional expansion. It leverages the latest technologies such as containers and in-memory database.

How Asterfusion SONiC NOS is differ from SONiC Community ?

Firstly ,AsterNOS is a commercial SONiC NOS compare to native SONiC , which means  AsterNOS it’s ready to use version for enterprises,especially we have optimized and upgraded network virtualization functions (Overlay Network), such as VXLAN &BGP- EVPN.

How your AsterNOS is differ from other SONiC Software?

AsterNOS work on both Teralynx, Intel Tofino and Marvell. Making SONiC be able to run these switch chips smoothly, which is our value to help people who want to use innovated features on today’s new switch chip other than broadcom.

Is it easy for us to change and use the software functions or to add functions related to the packet control and management function ?

It depends on your application, in general you can easily start from either SDE or SONiC to all the functions about date plane and management plane.

What is the scope of the software source code that can be distributed and the source code that cannot be provided?

SONiC community source code and our patch are available as source code.

Does Asterfusion SONiC NOS support EVPN-VXLAN, Vxlan and MC LAG ?

Yes,Our AsterNOS fully support EVPN-VXLAN, Vxlan and MC LAG

Will you provide source-code access and does there exist a Git repository for AsterNOS?

AsterNOS has quite a lot of enterprise grade features, currently we don’t provide full source code access, but we can provide SONiC community version code with binary only ASIC vendor’s driver. The quality of community may or may not as good as an out-of-box product.

Does AsterNOS can run on other vendor’s hardware?

Our SONiC based AsterNOS can perfect run on our own hardware, in theory it can run on other vendor’s  hardware, there will be a problem on verify the compatibility,we can arrange a meeting call discuss specially. We strongly suggest you to use our own hardware, which supports the best software compatibility, tech support, hardware stability and of course very cost-effective price

Is there any license fee or software support fee that we need to pay for Asterfusion SONiC?

Usually our AsterNOS runs on our own hardware (for Teralynx ,Tofino and Marvell) we provide either bare metal hardware, or hardware with AsterNOS, there is some amount of software cost if you choose H/W and S/W bundle, but this bundle should be more cost effective than today’s White box and NOS from another vendor.

What is the difference SONiC and P4, and also tell us the difference of your NOS and those similar.

SONiC is used in most data center fabric as the basic OS, our software work on both Teralynx ,Tofino Marvell makes SONiC be able to run these switch chips smoothly, which is our value to help people who want to use innovated features on today’s new switch chip other than broadcom.
P4 is another approach for today’s network disaggregation, it has pretty good usability in niche markets like gateway, load balance or NPB, in these market when people also want to be part of cloud eco system, they need a way to combine P4 with SONiC, that’s what we are doing, we help people to implement these applications in SONiC way.

What is your SONiC software upgrade Service Support?

Asterfusion offers a perpetual software license, we will provide bug fixing and security patch all life long.For example, if you buy version 3.1 with the shipment, you will get all the upgrades 3.x  unless there would be an EOL of version 3.x  . Suppose we release 4.0 in the coming 1 year, you can also get free upgrade from 3.1 to 4.0, and get 4.x upgrades in free. 

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