Open Network Cards

Snabb Switch supports network cards that are open.

Open refers to network cards for which the open source community can independently develop "clean room" drivers. That is, drivers that are entirely our own and don't depend on vendor-supplied software or special agreements such as NDAs.

Open network cards are important because they afford developers complete control over the design, maintenance, and support of their applications. Ideally the open source community are provided the same documentation and support as the vendor's in-house software development group.

The key to openness is public documentation. It is not sufficient to publish open source drivers that have been developed using secret documentation: that needs to be released to put independent developers on an equal footing with in-house teams.

For more background see Choosing NICs to focus on for Snabb Switch mailing list thread.

Call to action

Users: please reach out to vendors and tell them that this is important for you!

Vendors: please release your documentation so that we can independently develop software for your cards!

Open card list

This page keeps track of the openness status of various significant network cards on the market: which ones are already open, which ones have a roadmap to openness, which ones the community needs to engage in a dialogue with.

Intel:

• I350 (1G): open - datasheet.
• 82599 (10G): open - datasheet.
• XL710 (10G/40G): open - datasheet.
• FM10K (100G/...): not open yet, datasheet anticipated with general release of hardware.

Mellanox:

• ConnectX-4 (10G/40G/100G): open - Mellanox Adapters Programmer's Reference Manual (PRM)

Broadcom:

• No known open cards yet.

Solarflare:

• No known open cards yet.

Chelsio:

• No known open cards yet.