[PLUG] Broadcom APIs / FBOSS / Wedge

[Kris]

At my talk about linux-based network switches a few weeks ago, the topic 
of hardware openness came up and I mentioned that the Broadcom ASICs 
were all closed.

There is hope!  I recently came across Broadcome code for API access to 
the hardware:
https://github.com/Broadcom-Switch/OpenNSL

Looks like they have their own license so I can't say FOSS, but it's 
something.  Facebook FBOSS uses this API for configuring the ASICs from 
whatever Linux OS they are running on their OCP hardware.

https://code.facebook.com/posts/681382905244727/introducing-wedge-and-fboss-the-next-steps-toward-a-disaggregated-network/

https://github.com/facebook/fboss

I'm trying to get my hands on a Wedge ($6996 for 16x40GE) to see if I 
can glue the right pieces together to switch packets.  I'm curious if it 
works without requiring a team of developers.  I should be able to ONIE 
a Linux OS (Cumulus, Debian, maybe Ubuntu snappy), get FBOSS agents 
talking to the ASICs, and write some code to push something to routing 
and forwarding tables.

-- 
Kris Amundson