The data center switches field has developed rapidly and is no longer a monopolistic industry dominated by a few hardware suppliers.

Many network vendors, especially new ones emerging in the market, have embraced commercial chips instead of architectures built around customization, and many vendors primarily differentiate their data center switches based on software, APIs, and architectures.

This indicates the rise of bare metal and white box switches, based on commodity hardware as the foundation of the network switch network ecosystem. For network engineers deploying, managing, and purchasing switches, this has significantly changed their thinking and procurement decisions, but it has not changed everything.

Software-based fancy features are important, while hardware still plays an important role in evaluating prices, bandwidth, and other aspects. However, the focus is no longer solely on speed and capacity, and enterprise switch software will play a more important role in how enterprises build and upgrade their data center networks.

The solution needs to truly solve the problem of highly virtualized data centers (low latency, east-west traffic); It should be compatible with third-party platforms (cloud architecture, management programs, security); It should be able to simplify operations; It needs to receive good support from manufacturers because it is a new technology; It needs to be available.

In recent years, some manufacturers have developed code vulnerabilities in their core switches. Finally, these vendors need to explain how they coexist in the data center. Many people have already started this matter, and there will be more discussions in the future, especially as the true potential is not yet clear.