Big Switch, HPE, in 'You complete me. No, you complete me' tryst
Dell's still got more network OS options, but as anyone who remembers NetWare vs. NT can tell you, a NOS war is fun
Big Switch Networks and HPE have buddied up to push other's stuff and the concept of open networking.
The deal will see HPE resell Big Switch's Big Mon and Cloud Fabric on its Altoline switches.
HPE's kit isn't very good at the kind of monitoring Big Switch's products can enable, so HPE feels the deal gives it the chance to sell to clients who like to keep on top of network traffic for security or granular network grooming. Such tasks are often the province of carriers and like any sensible vendor both HPE and Big Switch want some of them as customers. They're therefore hopeful the tie-up will let both do business with more such organisations.
Big Switch's business development veep Susheel Chitre told The Register both companies' customers have also been asking if Big Switch was certified for Altoline.
The deal's arguably good news for Big Switch, as partners don't come much bigger than HPE. HPE comes out if it well because adding Big Switch to the list of Altoline partners means it keeps pace with Dell, which has Pluribus, Cumulus, OcNOS and Big Switch running on its open networking kit. At the time of writing Altoline can run networking wares from Cumulus and Pica8 PicOS. ®