Mellanox Technologies launched the “Generation of Open Ethernet” initiative, saying it was opening the source code on top of its Ethernet switch hardware. The company said this would provide an alternative approach to traditional closed-code Ethernet switches.

The initiative will give users flexibility and freedom to custom-design their data centers to optimize utilization, efficiency and overall return on investment, Mellanox said, framing the announcement as a “software-defined-networking” (SDN) play.

The trend of open source traditionally focused only on operating systems, standards and applications. Mellanox' initiative is meant to expand open source into the data center infrastructure.

OpenFlow and SDN implementations are not delivering on the promise, since vendors continue to lock their networking operating systems, providing a narrow SDN API (application programming interface) to some of the Ethernet switch’s functionality, Mellanox said.

The Mellanox Open Ethernet framework eliminates proprietary software, which the company hopes will encourage the development of an ecosystem environment focused on building Ethernet switch software to move innovation forward.

Open Ethernet includes the capability to fully customize, through the open code, a variety of open-source management software packages, support standard OpenFlow controllers and more. Open Ethernet is supported on Mellanox’s 10/20/40/56GbE switches, with forward compatibility to future Mellanox Ethernet solutions.

“The current landscape of proprietary Ethernet switches limits the foundation of compute and storage clouds and Web 2.0 infrastructures,” Eyal Waldman, president, CEO and chairman of the board of Mellanox, said. “We are excited to facilitate change and to lead the new generation of Open Ethernet that will enable a more open and collaborative world.”