Ilona:
welcome to today’s episode of the Aviz networks podcast shaping tomorrow today the Aviz and Accton partnership I’m Ilona Gabinsky and joining us today is a special guest Larry Ho Chief solution architect at Accton technology Larry it’s great to have you with us
Larry:
it’s great to be here
Ilona:
thank you so today will explore the evolving world of networking technology and the dynamic partnership between Aviz and Accton and what the future holds for this industry so let’s get started so Accton is at the Forefront of open networking Solutions Larry could you share the most critical Trends you think shaping the networking industry today
Larry:
sure so let me start by using the most common buzzword these days the AIML machine learning and artificial intelligence um specifically what I’m referring to is ethernet based networking for AIML um application workloads The Operators are interested in an alternative approach to infin band which up to this point has been the do predominant uh uh technology to support uh AIML Network um the merchant silicon such as broadcom Tom Hawk 5 are offering cheap level cognitive routing features to assist in managing networking congestions and towards achieving lossless networks um so this is the first and foremost the uh most important Trend that we are observing uh then secondly uh respect to open networking integrating Network Solutions and that is integrated AIML infrastructure Solutions end to endend with not just on switch components but with integrated Hardware software and including servers smartnet and gpus storage and so forth and this is what I meant by end to end and then with common software uh including such as the controllers to manage the the life cycle of these components um is another Trend that we see customers are seriously looking at and seeking speaking of managing life cycle Network Management Solutions that leverage the Advent of uh AI uh Services um in order to lower the net Ops uh costs is also another Trend that we see started to uh mounting and getting more momentum within the last year
Ilona:
definitely this is great insight into the current trends highlighting the importance of AI and integrated infrastructure in advancing networking technology and lowering cost so with AI integration becoming so crucial in networking services and Hardware how is Accton and edgecore adapting to this demand
Larry:
so I think it is important to recognize that while many customers are intrigued by the buzzing of AI the fundamental challenge for most operators if not all operators is still looking at way on how to lower their opics and CICS in their infrastructure spending so to this end any services that utilize AI needs to have a clear and proven positive savings
Ilona:
his is excellent point Larry an excellent point about the necessity for AI to offer tangible cost savings and you don’t want to implement AI for the sake of implementing AI it should definitely bring you the ROI and reduce the budget pressure
Larry:
that’s right
Ilona:
so now can you elaborate a little more on how collaborating with Aviz enhances these cost savings for customers as well as how it enhances your capabilities
Larry:
sure uh we’ve been working with uh these networks uh for actually almost three years now um from a networking Solutions point point of view Accton subsidiary edgecore networks collaborates with a by certifying and qualifying many of edgecore data center and Enterprise switches together with Edgecore Community Based Sonic to be managed by a one controller and so that solution stack is certified and qualified today um on many of the edgecore hardware in addition we also support a OPB products the packet broker products which also needs to uh run on a lot of the uh uh underneath uh switches and and that’s why um the OPB certifications with Sonic and um uh the hardware switches uh is another collaboration area that we’ve been working with um this since uh 2022 um and then of course it’s more than just products once you have these product Solutions in place customers always are interested in product support so end to-end product support workflows between a Avis and edgecore as as well as also the lower level support uh solution component such as the ASX are currently in place to give customer a seamless product life cycle support experience of the entire solution this is a very important element that uh every customers would want to know and demand
Ilona:
this is great example Larry of how our efforts leads to that uh seamless support substantial cost savings and enhance capabilities for our customers
Larry:
right now besides products and Integrated Solutions Aviz and edgecore also collaborates at the engineering product development and testing front Ator Sonic while it is opened and Community Based continue to add features that we deemed are necessary by the Sonic Community Based on some of the marketing trends that I alluded to earlier now an examp sample is a feature that monitors package drops in AI cluster fabrics and while edgecore implements the feature in the switch Aviz took care of exposing the feature via One controller as a matter of fact this will be one of edgecores presentation in the upcoming ocp Global in San Jose in in October and it’s going to be co-presented with the uh customer that actually um is using this uh package drop uh monitoring feature
Ilona:
yeah this is definitely very exciting and I’m I’m sure a lot of customers will be coming to ocp and uh we’ll find you uh your booth there
Larry:
yes please do
Ilona:
so Larry do you have a success story where Accton and your subsidiary edgecore collaborated together with us uh that significantly impacted the customers business that you can share
Larry:
sure yes I do um I have several but let me just go back to the beginning um because that’s where uh it sets the um the proof points Edgecore and Aviz Pioneer the notion of adopting Community Based uh Sonic on multivendor Switching Hardware with a common onetop Service uh uh offering uh almost three years ago this solution is suitable for customer and operators who want to seek a lower cost while white box and open-source Sonic but they also want to be free themselves of being locked into a proprietary solution or to a single vendor and we successfully deploy this integrated solution of edgecore Hardware um Edgecore Sonic and Aviz uh controller um into a data center of a Us customer and actually it’s I should say data centers because this um um Us customer has multiple locations and sites M and according to this customer the solution resulted in a 4X savings compared to the traditional ovm solution that it used to have and uh that it is migrating into uh Sonic and it acted as a proof point is important because this successful deployment and savings um is a good proof point to that de that deploying Community Based Sonic is a viable option and has since been repeated in a number of customers uh that uh Aviz and uh and edgecore as join the service
Ilona:
Larry this is an impressive customer story demonstrating the significant cost savings know four Time Savings is definitely a big number and operational benefits you mentioned that the customer achieved through the collaboration um this is really impressive so Larry looking ahead what are the Strategic priorities for Accton in the coming years
Larry:
well I think you, will see that uh Accton will go to market with more and more prepackaged and Integrated Network Solutions while continuing to adopt many of the open networking principles we are always at the Forefront to support open networking we are one of the Pioneers but um the trend is as I said earlier it’s now um towards the Integrated Solutions that customer is seeking so some of the solutions will expand from purely addressing networking infrastructures needs into endtoend solutions that covers the compute and even storage infrastructure as AIML continues to drive for its it infrastructure transformation so as a start I encourage the viewers of this podcast to uh stop by the actual Accton booth at ocp Global in San Jose this October where you will see some of these Solutions in display and demo
Ilona:
definitely uh this is very exciting to hear about the Forward Thinking strategies um that you are sharing with us today so now for companies who are considering open networking Solutions what advice would you offer to them
Larry:
well uh a couple points that comes to my mind first of all know your primary motivations or objectives of why you are interested in open networking and both in terms of his technology and solutions and what are the constraints of your operations how does it actually affect it there is a wide range of networking solutions that are based on all based on open networking principles but they offer different advantages that may or may not match your primary motivations so know what they are and trying to seek the solution that um matches best then find a vendor that can assist you to go through the vendor qualification or POC stage quickly this is something that every customers um at least today that we encountered would want to see because they are many of them are are um coming from the traditional OEM deployment Brownfield so when they want to consider open networking the very first step is trying to qualify the vendors there’s so many vendors how do I filter and zero in and trying to finalize and come up with the final uh candidates if you will so that I can quickly um um deploy it so find a vendor that can assist you like a Aviz that can do this and um and then help you quickly zero in on the finalist of the suppliers that best match your requirements and then you go from there
Ilona:
Larry it’s been great to discuss these aspects with you today your insights not only highlight the strengths of our partnership but also reflect the Innovative Spirit of Accton networks thank you for joining us and we look forward to seeing what the future holds for Edge core and our boing collaboration and Accton to our listeners thank you for tuning in and we’ll see you in the next episode
