SONiC (Software for Open Networking in the Cloud) is an open source network operating system based on Linux that was developed by Microsoft and now part of the Open Compute Project. SONiC is the leading open-source network switch OS, empowering customers with modern and efficient cloud networking software with several advantages and is being rapidly adopted by hyperscalers, cloud operators, telcos and leading enterprises.

SONiC is an open source network operating system based on Linux and containers technology that runs on switches from multiple vendors. SONiC offers a full-suite of network functionality, including BGP, QoS and RDMA, that has been hardened in production data centers of some of the largest cloud providers, like Microsoft, Alibaba & LinkedIN. It offers them the flexibility to create the network solutions they need while leveraging the collective strength of a large ecosystem and community. SONiC provides the following advantages to customers, including

• It is an open-source NOS and doesn’t lock customer to any specific vendor
• It provides agility and innovation leveraging contributions from over 2000 engineers belonging to more than 850 member companies
• It provides more control and simplicity to customers using composable software with container technology

The SONiC community includes cloud providers, service providers, silicon vendors and systems manufacturers.

SONiC is an open source network operating system based on Linux and container technology. It has a scalable and distributed software architecture that relies on use of a redis-database engine, with key-value pairs. As shown in the picture below, SONiC has multiple software components, each running as a docker container in Linux. These software modules collectively provide control plane, management plane and ability to program the dataplane functionality on the switch.

Configuration and management tools – used to manage Linux servers – can be leveraged for network use.