White box switches are network switches that are assembled from standardized commodity parts and run on off-the-shelf chips. Unlike traditional switches, which are proprietary and come with their own software, white box switches are “blank” hardware that users can choose to develop or purchase a third-party network operating system (NOS) for.
The open architecture of white box switches allows for the separation and disaggregation of switch software and hardware, improving network openness, flexibility, and programmability. This also enables a more transparent price while reducing OPEX/CAPEX and breaking free from vendor lock-in.
InsidePacket has built the first in-the-world Network Security OS (NSOS) that runs on commodity-of-the-shelf hardware. Their revolutionary technology is capable of orders-of-magnitude acceleration of L2-L7 packet processing and services on any programmable hardware, including SmartNICs and white box switches.
To learn more about the benefits of insidePacket architecture, read about NSOS.