Pica8 P3930 and P3922

Pica8 proudly proclaims they are a white box switch vendor. Sort of a different kind of bird, their story is told by NETWORKWORLD. Some users with whole data centers full of computers are probably using white box switches running in-house software for their operations. They might be Pica8s. This is an open software play.

From a Sept 9, 2013 press release:

Leveraging its new relationship with Accton Technology, Pica8 is introducing the P-3922, a 48-port 10 GbE SFP+ base unit, with four 40 GbE QSFP+ or 16 10 GbE QSFP+ uplinks. The switch includes full function switching, routing, industry-leading OpenFlow support and open Debian Linux. The P-3922.s US list price is $15,900, and is available now and can be purchased through Pica8's global network of resellers and system integrators.

In November 2014 Pica8 issued a white paper explaining their value proposition.

Kernelsoftware.com sells Quanta switches which has some relation to Pica8. The difference between LY2 and LY2R is the latter connects SFP+ sockets directly to the switch ASIC without an intervening PHY chip. The PHY chip can provide features like MACSEC. PHY chips increase the switch AC power draw, so they should be avoided unless features of the PHY are a requirement. October 13, 2014.

Mfg P/N	Description	Condition	Weight	Com	EDU
1LY2BZZ0008	T3048-LY2 FRONT TO BACK AIR FLOW (SWITCH INSTALLED WITH PORTS IN THE FRONT OF THE RACK) IPV6 LAYER 3 / LAYER 2 TOP OF THE RACK MANAGED SWITCH 1U HEIGHT SWITCH F	New	19.00	$7,141.28	$7,141.28
1LY2BZZ0009	T3048-LY2 BACK TO FRONT AIR FLOW (SWITCH INSTALLED WITH PORTS IN THE REAR OF THERACK) IPV6 LAYER 3 / LAYER 2 TOP OF THE RACK MANAGED SWITCH 1U HEIGHT SWITCH FO	New	19.00	$7,141.28	$7,141.28
1LY2BZZ000M	LY2R QUANTA CODE F-B 48X 10G SFP+ & 4X 40G QSFP+	New	10.50	$5,417.53	$5,417.53
1LY2BZZ000N	LY2R QUANTA CODE B-F 48X 10G SFP+ & 4X 40G QSFP+	New	10.50	$5,417.53	$5,417.53

Here's a snippet from the PicOS 2.6 Command Reference page 70 that hints it is possible to control buffer burst performance. It is pretty vague on details such as what are the units? and does 0 queue-limit mean no limit or something different?

interface ethernet-switching-options buffer queue-limit

interface ethernet-switching-options buffer queue-limit You can set the limit value of queue buffer. Command Syntax set interface ethernet-switching-options buffer queue-limit delete interface ethernet-switching-options buffer queue-limit Parameter . the queue-limit values indentifier,ranges from 0 to 20000 Example . This example is to configure the buffer queue limit: admin@XorPlus# set interface ethernet-switching-options buffer queue-limit 0 admin@XorPlus# delete interface ethernet-switching-options buffer queue-limit admin@XorPlus#commit

Email to Pica8 support to understand that got . . .

Hi Jim, 1 What are the units of 'value'? Packets, bytes, or cells? The units value is cells. 2. If the value is set to zero, does that mean no buffer or no limit on the buffer, or something different? if the dynamic cells set to zero, the dynamic buffer will no limit. 3. If the queue-limit is off, does that mean one output port can take the entire dynamic queue? Yes, PicOS one output port may be take the the entire dynamic queue. 4. What is the default condition? If not configure the queue-limit, Picos default use fixed and dynamic cells, but the cell size is different on different ASIC. 5. This command is not included in the configuration guide, and that book as buffer commands that are not in the command reference. Is one of these books obsolete? This configuration guide can not update to the new commands, we will upgdate it. Mikel Tang Pica8, Inc.