DUBAI, UAE: Infoblox Inc. announced LINCX, a new production-ready open-source software-defined networking switch that is fully programmable, available now as a free download from the FlowForwarding.org project.
Stuart Bailey, founder and CTO of Infoblox, and his research team developed LINCX as a contribution to the SDN community-not as an Infoblox product-to demonstrate how SDN makes it possible to quickly and inexpensively create powerful new technology that can disrupt traditional hardware-based networking. The goal for LINCX, therefore, is to help drive further awareness and development of open-source SDN applications.
LINCX was built in one year by a team of only 6 engineers at a cost of about $1 million, and contains about 34,000 lines of code. Commercial-grade hardware switches typically require teams of dozens of engineers working for several years and contain hundreds of thousands or even millions of lines of code.
No dedicated hardware is required for LINCX. Instead, the software can run on any standard off-the-shelf physical or virtual Linux or Xen server, as well as on network "white-box" devices that cost as little as $300. Hardware switches, in contrast, typically cost tens of thousands of dollars, require expensive custom processors, and run proprietary software that can't be accessed or modified by the user.