Design Project 1 - micahgrinnell/CC-Capstone-Project GitHub Wiki

White-Box Switching Initial Research

Throughout this design project, my goal is to familiarize myself with the fundamentals of white-box switching, their functionality, and how they can be used most efficiently. I have found several resources that cover white-box switching as well as the most popular network operating systems. These include PICA8, Open Network Linux, and DENT. By the end of this first project, I hope to have a better grasp of white-box switches and their capabilities.

I have also been in contact with one of the professors about getting some white-box hardware from an outside source they know of. Unfortunately due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the organization in question has ceased all businesses outside of their region (UK). Therefore, this first project will serve only as research for white-box switching, and for the next project, I will transition into a different but relevant topic.

Below you will find links to my findings and project:

Capstone Transition to ProtectCLI

Adam has updated those doing white-box switching projects that he could no longer obtain the hardware from the UK company he had found. Due to COVID-19, there have been limitations with shipping internationally.

After a meeting with Adam, I have decided to move to focus on ProtectCLI devices and their capabilities. We discussed:

  • layer 3 focus rather than 2 (routers vs switches)
  • redudancy with vyos or pfsense (dynamic rules, feeds operation intelligence)
  • additional edge routers and distribution routers (can be obtained through extras at Champlain)
  • design project 2 - protectli config - ansible
  • design project 3 - scaleable or redundant
  • project 1 - document limitations: couldn't get hardware
  • neither me nor the school should pay ~$2000 for other bare-metal switches
  • openflow

Project Plan