In The Arena by TechArena - SONIC Network Innovation for the AI Era with PLVision’s Taras Chornyi

Episode Date: April 29, 2024

TechArena host Allyson Klein chats with PLVision Director of Open Networking Solutions and Strategy, Taras Chornyi, about the progress of SONIC and open network infrastructure for the AI Era.

Welcome to the Tech Arena, featuring authentic discussions between tech's leading innovators and our host, Alison Klein. Now, let's step into the arena. Welcome to the Tech Arena. My name is Alison Klein, and I am coming to you from OCP Lisbon this week. And I'm so delighted to be joined by Taras Chernoi, Director of Network Solutions and Strategy at PL Vision. Welcome to the program, Taras. Thanks for having me. So, Taras, why don't we just start with an introduction of PL Vision. You guys are known as a leader in switching technology, and you're delivering a couple of really interesting sessions at Open Compute this week,

but it's the first time that you guys have been on the program. So why don't you just do an introduction of the company and your role there? Oh, sure. So basically, we're a software company. We are located in the Petco, sort of, in Poland, in the European Union. And we are heavily specialized in networking. We've been in the market for 17 years now. I think our main strength here is about the legacy and the history of delivering the success to our clients and partners.

Nice. Now, I want to start with your session on Sonic. Sonic has been getting a tremendous amount of visibility at OpenCompete this week. Why don't you just start with the definition of what it is and why it's so cool? Oh, it's a tricky question. I've been asked this question so many times

that every time I'm finding new words, I don't know if it's still the right answer or not. In a nutshell, Sonic is the, as of today, I can say the Linux of the magazine. You didn't know that half of all technology devices are the power of the Linux. My assumption, and my guess is that half of the network can be represented, but even me, it's not possible to proceed.

It was initially introduced by Microsoft several, I don't know, eight years now. And it's the open-source operating system that helps to drive the emulation with the hyperscalers. It's happened. Now it's spreading. That's why everyone's so excited about that. It allows companies with resources not equal

to the hyperscalers Amazon benefit for the collaboration. Now, open source networking for years had been kind of the last bastion of open source to Roo. Why do you think there was a challenge there? And why do you think we see the change with Sonic? I believe the change happened

because there was a huge rising force by the hyperscalers that they need open. Let's be realistic. The legacy companies, they are cool with the things they have now and the legacy private networking is still available. It still has a huge pop-up position. The hyperscalers wanted to have the functions they are left with over the functionality and over the speed generation. The competition was furious. Hospitals in Berlin, the more productive you are and the more competitive.

So by pushing on those companies, they basically forced the whole industry to make it. What were we able to demonstrate in terms of the four factors that have propelled this technology in data centers? And how does this translate to the edge? I believe that the most important part is the kind of utility. the same proprietary OSes like legacy one, not maybe legacy one, but proprietary systems for the white boxes, right infusion, right brightness, other things.

But basically it was replacing one thing for example, for the Osasho model does the same. This technology allows that you have truly mutuality on each and every level. And for this multi-dimensional mutuality, you can replace your ASIC, you can replace your vendor, you can replace your open ASIC vendor, box vendor, and even components vendor, and still having the same OS running on it and controlled by your company, if you're talking about banking scalers. If you are talking about the small companies edge, there is a

variety of companies now providing this benefits and this solution based on the open source to the small companies which doesn't have engineering resources to control everything but it's already

transforming the whole whole industry here main changer here was the acceptance by the basic members which is i believe it's quite in the tight community there are a handful of them available currently in the market that they provide the open API to control the Google Play. Right. Based on that now, anyone that has the ability to program, simple. It was an area which was known for lock-in. And so you're describing something that just has basically unlocked the lock-in, which is fantastic.

It's customer's choice. As you look at oversight of cloud networks, what are the core capabilities that you think are evolving with customer environments today? is customer's choice. As you look at oversight of cloud networks, what are the core capabilities that you think are evolving with customer requirements today? I believe it's sensitive. So we do remember, and it's still available now,

when you take a look on the data sheets for the legacy networking product, you have thousands, hundreds of protocols, all those different features. And on your team, none of the networks uses all

of them. The need of that is because the legacy and the other ODMs

that provide the network system may work as many

use spaces as they can with the open source

and with the cloud networks, it's sort of our virtual efficient, make it as simple as possible, as reliable as possible, and as fast as possible. So the set of protocols used, so basically, and this is shitty. The same happens in the complex and in the edge. edge as of today most of the networks still run and operate in the I don't want to say

legacy in the current way of doing things which each and every company has their own secret sauce in the heaven and they are

looking at the hyperscalers and their cloud networks they do realize we can make it simpler we can make it

more efficient we can make it cheaper and I believe this time we can continue to evolve in that area, that the success of the hyperscalers will be slowly penetrating the new and new markets. We are talking about hospitality, we are talking about fintech, we are talking about office networks. And equipment will become commodity.

So no longer will I need vendor AFV because I can get AFV. People have the freedom, which will drive the completion up and the price down. That's fantastic. I want to segue to your next session because you're covering a lot of ground at OCP. How is AI influencing the network landscape and where are we in our AI journey with network oversight? It's a tough one. Basically, it's a tough one because nowadays, everyone talks about AI.

It looks like everyone, you know, several years ago, all talked about crypto. Now everyone talks about AI. AI is a great technology. It will help and it will change the great technology. It will help and it will change the landscape

drastically. But no one knows when and how. There are so many predictions

and I don't understand how I see it from the networking perspective.

It's like a perfect story. AI needs network to be fast, low latency and a huge benefit.

Like this. Why? The GPU is for citizens. There is not enough GPUs for everyone. So you want to train your model as fast as you can. So you want to push as much data as you can. So this drives the new requirements for the low latency,

low power, network and chip designs to help to drive this transition to the AI with large models, large data centers. There are talks about predictions that 70 gigawatts, new data centers to be able to go the next few years. We are on the limit on power, on resources, on GPUs, on other methods. Everyone is trying to use as much as they can. And AI is a new life.

Because that whole world was evolving, but then, let's say, evolution. So we were doubling the speeds every several years. Now everyone is in third KB needs to do something drastic with it. let's say evolution so we were doubling the speeds every several years now everyone instead hey we need to do something drastic with and companies start to invest

heavily in those new technologies and basically it's good isn't it back up the

the track to be compatible with FiniBet so when FiniBet was the big thing

in the HPC if you take a look at AI it's probably the most smart of the HPC. But now, with the new alliances like Google Earth, with RTMA, with the low latency communication and high bandwidth at 800, with 1.6 Tera, just 1.0 Tera switches,

AI pushing this forward and companies see the opportunity and so much of that brings good data. I believe AI will help to me I have innovation

and not everything will be successful but it will benefit the

overall and it will help get new technologies you talk

about SAI oversight why is this important I was talking

about this earlier question so the SAI this. Why is this important? I was talking about this in the previous question. So the SAI, this is this open API that chip bundles provide for all their chips. And this was the instrumental or maybe essential part which allowed this innovation

and Sonic to happen. Sonic, if everyone talks Sonic, Sonic cannot be happening without SAI. Interesting. Each and every vendor, we have RobotCon, we have NVIDIA, we have Marvel, we have Cisco, they do provide their SAI for the Sonic community

to pull their switches. And we have the community within the OCP, SAI is the OCP project, that defines the simple and standard interface for all ASIC members to be supported, allows the sonic to happen. And it's not just sonic. I've also used SAI. Tantos just moved to the SAI. So it's a new language that network operating systems talk

to the underlying devices. Awesome. Thank you for that clarification. And obviously that's a really important capability, especially if you're going to be expecting interoperability across switch boxes. How is PL Vision delivering solutions in this space?

It's a tough one. The reason why it's a tough one, the market is super competitive. And it's really, really serious. I'm really limited about what I can say, what I cannot say. But I can tell you that

we've been on the market for 17 years now. We started with the proprietary solutions because there was no open network back there. Now it's just a open network. We help the industry players through the whole supply chain up. Starting from the vendors of the chips, then boxes, plastic, Pokemon, and the proprietary ones, and the end-lovers. We have the benefits of the combined efforts of the whole industry.

Because it's simple. No matter how big the level is, there's only as much resources it can pull to its own model. Right. Imagine that we have the biggest company in the industry now working together to make one product better. The amount of changes in solar energy storage you're talking hundreds per month. It's coming from Google, Microsoft, Alibaba, LinkedIn, Rote, Dell, Ovidia, and you name it, they are there. So how do we deliver solutions?

We navigate through all this white story water because there are so many changes in the understand and we help our customers pick the best solution for their needs each and every customer is unique still so we are here to help the biggest companies to still be in on the top on the edge of the of the networking but also the smaller one to benefit from that collaborative efforts within the industry to still use it. And we also have our own products. So in contrast to the data center, where, you know, the carpets are huge,

you're talking like millions and billions of dollars in the worldwide, we've focused on the really simple, relatively simple use case, access level. So we took the Sonics and Datacenter, which was designed and works great with Datacenter. It's happened. And we placed it on the access level. So you're benefiting from what was coming

from the Datacenter. I was talking about that. We are penetrating the technology and solutions of Datacenter products. Yeah, I like that. And we basically started opening this in the name of Sonic Light. It's simplified, it's optimized,

but it allows you to have the right to lower your bumpers on the device. We've worked with several hardware vendors to make sure it's accurate. That's fantastic. I am excited to see what happens in this space over the next couple of years. I'm sure our listeners are excited too.

Where can folks learn more about the solutions that you talked about and connect with you and your team? So I believe that you can easily find me on LinkedIn. And I believe that you will put the link to our website. Feel free to join us. I will be here in the C to our website. Feel free to join us. I will be here for today and fortunately tomorrow I'm flying to the States for the One Summit. You can reconnect there as well.

Awesome. Thank you so much for being on the show today. It was a real pleasure. Thank you. Thanks for joining the Tech Arena. Subscribe and engage at our website, the Tech Arena. Subscribe and engage at our website, thetecharena.net. All content is copyright by the Tech Arena.