41–50 of 81 posts
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I also was told tofino was looking EOL. Like NUC, dropped from some C suites KPI set and longterm roadmap. I'd love to be wrong, this is just what people said.
NUC somewhat avoided the google^Wintel graveyard - they sold at least the branding to Asus.
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What are they making instead?
To my knowledge: nothing. Intel is exiting the network switch silicon business¹. Broadcom and nVidia are dominating (different parts of) the market; Marvell and Microchip are fighting for the scraps. The only "cool" player is Microchip, who have been providing full datasheets, register maps, and open sourcing their drivers for years now. But I'm under no illusions they're doing this out of the goodness of their heart…
But like Tofino, it's mostly stuff that is "behind the curtain"at hyperscalers or deep inside closed box switches
I’m impressed by the political acumen it takes to get a Corp to release code as OSS. My career has seen at least two chunks of work that would have made great OSS (ie potentially useful outside of the single company) but Incoukd not get past the final hurdle And they would have been nice CV boosters as well (my real motivation!)
Well. It looks like abandonning software to the community. From the "P4 workflow" described at https://p4.org/ I see mentions of compiling to x86, but no mention of ARM, and no mention of BPF. So, as someone who discover it, I wonder if this project is still relevant in 2025.
Regardless, OSS is probably the best way to get it onto other architectures.
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It helps that Intel has been contributing to OSS since forever, they have good internal processes established and some orgs develop/contribute to OSS pretty much exclusively.
I think the biggest contributor to these processes was going open source in their graphics drivers. They went from "we have tons of 3rd party IP in these!" to, "you don't need to download anything, it's in kernel mainline now" in a generation and they're off to the races after that. Maybe their Ethernet drivers were open before that, I don't remember but, video drivers made them pass a threshold in maturity IMHO.
Linux and x86 became unbeatable in the space for 20 years.
They have known how important it is. They won't forget.
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I think the biggest contributor to these processes was going open source in their graphics drivers. They went from "we have tons of 3rd party IP in these!" to, "you don't need to download anything, it's in kernel mainline now" in a generation and they're off to the races after that. Maybe their Ethernet drivers were open before that, I don't remember but, video drivers made them pass a threshold in maturity IMHO.
Intel embraced Linux when they bet big in datacenters in early 2002. The momentum they got from there, with Linux dominating the sector, made them realize how much of a benefit it is to have a free software stack. With Linux they were able to go head to head with the incumbents of the day. Linux and x86 became unbeatable in the space for 20 years. They have known how important it is. They won't forget.
The open source part came later, starting with CPU and chipset support, then Ethernet, then GPUs IIRC.
The biggest and sweetest side-effect is Desktop/Personal use Linux support as long as the hardware doesn't do anything janky, or too janky.
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Yes, Intel canceled Tofino two years ago. I'm not complaining but it's weird that they're open sourcing the SDK now. Maybe it's to support Mount Evans.
Releasing dead software that is used only to support dead hardware?
Still, of course it would've been better to have released it sooner.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Intel embraced Linux when they bet big in datacenters in early 2002. The momentum they got from there, with Linux dominating the sector, made them realize how much of a benefit it is to have a free software stack. With Linux they were able to go head to head with the incumbents of the day. Linux and x86 became unbeatable in the space for 20 years. They have known how important it is. They won't forget.
Yes, however, they first made their hardware standard compliant rather than making their driver open source. The open source part came later, starting with CPU and chipset support, then Ethernet, then GPUs IIRC. The biggest and sweetest side-effect is Desktop/Personal use Linux support as long as the hardware doesn't do anything janky, or too janky.
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What are they making instead?
To my knowledge: nothing. Intel is exiting the network switch silicon business¹. Broadcom and nVidia are dominating (different parts of) the market; Marvell and Microchip are fighting for the scraps. The only "cool" player is Microchip, who have been providing full datasheets, register maps, and open sourcing their drivers for years now. But I'm under no illusions they're doing this out of the goodness of their heart…
Cisco Meraki did; their low end switches are Marvell and their "high end" switches (MS420, MS425, MS450, MS350, MS355) were all Broadcom based. Were because about a year ago they announced the End of Sale of all Broadcom based switches.
Everything above the low end stuff is now Cisco Catalyst. (Although one can argue everything from Meraki is low end apart from their prices)
> Marvell and Microchip are fighting for the scraps
Realtek also. Lots of smaller L2 managed switches based on the RTL93xx series. [1]
But I am not seriously comparing Realtek to Tofino, that's like comparing Hot wheels to the actual car.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What are they making instead?
To my knowledge: nothing. Intel is exiting the network switch silicon business¹. Broadcom and nVidia are dominating (different parts of) the market; Marvell and Microchip are fighting for the scraps. The only "cool" player is Microchip, who have been providing full datasheets, register maps, and open sourcing their drivers for years now. But I'm under no illusions they're doing this out of the goodness of their heart…
Not much to add technically but I am very curious who named it Tofino. Tofino is a city by where I live. It is a beautiful location on the Pacific Ocean on Vancouver Island. A favorite destination for our PM Justin Trudeau. Definitely one of the top 100 beautiful places in the world. When I go there I feel stress leave my body and just enjoy the sounds of the waves crashing and the feeling of the sand on my feet melt…
I particularly enjoy the winter trips to SF to show my colleagues pictures of the latest cold water surf adventure.