Dive Brief:

• HP said it is partnering with Accton Technology Corporation, Arista, Broadcom, Intel, and VMware to develop an open source network operating system (NOS) for data centers.
• The OpenSwitch Community will develop a Linux-based OpenSwitch NOS in an attempt to "address scale, dynamic operation and vendor independence."
• HP said the launch is an opportunity to develop and own a viable data center NOS in order to better compete with Cisco and other vendors.

Dive Insight:

"HP clearly believes it has a mandate to play as a NOS vendor in network disaggregation," said IDC analyst Brad Casemore. "I expected that we would see other NOS vendors, including a big name or two, get into network disaggregation, but HP wasn't the first name that came to mind."

HP reportedly evaluated existing community-developed open source offerings before deciding to head down this path.

HP recently announced agreements with Cumulus Networks and Pica8 to resell or support their data center NOSes, but the company said it also wants to develop and own a modular and extensible switch operating system.The first developer release of the new OpenSwitch NOS is expected before the first half of 2016.