AT&T Finally Opens Up dNOS "DANOS" Network Operating System Code

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AT&T Finally Opens Up dNOS "DANOS" Network Operating System Code

One and a half years late, the "DANOS" (known formerly as "dNOS") network operating system is now open-source under the Linux Foundation...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ATT-DANOS-Now-Posted

[starshipeleven]

This is basically Debian with a proprietary web interface (maybe now it is opensourced?) and a centralized configuration system, similar to OpenWrt's UCI subsystem, or Cisco routers, or OpenSUSE with Yast, or anything else commercial.
See here an example:
https://vyos.readthedocs.io/en/lates...on-terminology

The older and more well-known name is Vyatta, it is the old upstream of VyOS (that is now independent since Vyatta became closed source).

If the web interface is opensourced VyOS can start using it as well, although I think are already using their own after a few years of development, I guess they won't just drop it and switch back.

EDIT: I didn't mean to dismiss this as a "ubuntu flavor of the week" distro, making a decent and powerful centralized configuration system and interface is still not easy, and very very good for anything that is not managed by Veteran Unix Admins.

[timofonic]

Anyone can say if there's useful parts on this dying project? Or the previous Open Source fork (VyOS) already has better ones?

[cybertraveler]

I couldn't figure out what this was and why it was being made until I read the intro of their whitepaper:

https://about.att.com/content/dam/innovationblogdocs/att-routing-nos-open-architecture_FINAL%20whitepaper.pdf

TL;DR: they've got tons of networking hardware (routers, switches, weird-hardware-that-deals-with-IP-data etc) and it's not all centrally, programatically configured and managed. They have to manage a lot of it independently and presumably maintain high-level, human-only descriptions of their hardware and configurations outside of the systems themselves. This OS looks like it's an effort to make ONE OS FOR ALL THE NETWORKING THINGS! Thus they will be able to centrally manage and configure all their hardware via one GUI or at least, one set of standardized config files. It probably also means they can finally fire that one 70 year old, tech-guy who they're paying 50 million a year. This guy has near-complete, high-level knowledge of all their networking hardware and sits in a veritable throne in the best office in the corporate headquarters. All of upper management hate this tech guy, but they need him, so they begrudgingly and in humiliation drop to one knee when entering his office to ask "The Oracle" (as he demands to be called) questions about their archaic systems.

TL;DR the above either: DANOS is being created so that AT&T can fire a highly paid, megalomaniac, tech guy that upper management (also megalomaniacs) hate.

[starshipeleven]

Anyone can say if there's useful parts on this dying project? Or the previous Open Source fork (VyOS) already has better ones?

I just checked and it seems they still don't have a working GUI, but only a HTTPS rest API (which is a backend for a javascript-based website or an integrated cluster/network/whatever management tool).

[starshipeleven]

I couldn't figure out what this was and why it was being made until I read the intro of their whitepaper:
https://about.att.com/content/dam/in...whitepaper.pdf

TL;DR: they've got tons of networking hardware (routers, switches, weird-hardware-that-deals-with-IP-data etc) and it's not all centrally, programatically configured and managed. They have to manage a lot of it independently and presumably maintain high-level, human-only descriptions of their hardware and configurations outside of the systems themselves. This OS looks like it's an effort to make ONE OS FOR ALL THE NETWORKING THINGS! Thus they will be able to centrally manage and configure all their hardware via one GUI or at least, one set of standardized config files. It probably also means they can finally fire that one 70 year old, tech-guy who they're paying 50 million a year. This guy has near-complete, high-level knowledge of all their networking hardware and sits in a veritable throne in the best office in the corporate headquarters. All of upper management hate this tech guy, but they need him, so they begrudgingly and in humiliation drop to one knee when entering his office to ask "The Oracle" (as he demands to be called) questions about their archaic systems.

TL;DR the above either: DANOS is being created so that AT&T can fire a highly paid, megalomaniac, tech guy that upper management (also megalomaniacs) hate.

For those wondering, the above text is fictional.

The real TL;DR:
AT&T found out that a normal server running Debian is vastly more powerful, cheaper, flexible than commercial custom/embedded network hardware solutions. Which is not really news for many people that work in that field.

[cybertraveler]

For those wondering, the above text is fictional.

The real TL;DR:
AT&T found out that a normal server running Debian is vastly more powerful, cheaper, flexible than commercial custom/embedded network hardware solutions. Which is not really news for many people that work in that field.

Remove the tech guy and the rest is true. Says right in the intro to the white paper that they have a mix of hardware much of which is running proprietary software/firmware. DANOS is meant to be a layer to sit ontop of all of the hardware. It's not Debian or even Linux specific.

[starshipeleven]

Remove the tech guy and the rest is true.

no

Says right in the intro to the white paper that they have a mix of hardware much of which is running proprietary software/firmware.

yes, everyone at bigger sizes do

DANOS is meant to be a layer to sit ontop of all of the hardware. It's not Debian or even Linux specific.

no

The whitepaper is about dNOS, which is the "standard" or API or whatever to remote control this pinnacle of abstraction.

DANOS is an actual turnkey OS that implements the dNOS standard API, where the leg work is Debian, and it is in fact the good old Vyatta with some more stuff added.

[CommunityMember]

AT&T found out that a normal server running Debian is vastly more powerful, cheaper, flexible than commercial custom/embedded network hardware solutions. Which is not really news for many people that work in that field.

Agreed, although it can seem like news for those that have not been following the industry and are unaware of what the hyperscallers have been doing for quite some time now (and are not in Denver this week at SC19 learning?). DPDK is sort of the secret sauce there (for the data plane). DANOS is the control plane, which will be an additional alternative to some other control plane implementations for some customers going forward. On recent XEON E5-2600v4s one should be able to achieve around 10Gb/s per core on basic commodity designs (various smartnics and intellegent nics can push much faster). With FRR as the routing engine (and apparently ZebOS with commercial support) DANOS should be yet another viable alternative for certain customers moving forward. Of course, if you need to move hundreds of terabits per second per rack, you may still need to look towards the dedicated network solutions from the likes of companies such as A, A, C, J.

[cybertraveler]

DANOS is an actual turnkey OS that implements the dNOS standard API, where the leg work is Debian, and it is in fact the good old Vyatta with some more stuff added.

From the article:

"DANOS" (known formerly as "dNOS")

That wrong?