# Ep 14: Why SONiC PlugFest Beats Traditional POCs for Network Evaluation

[Ep 14: Why SONiC PlugFest Beats Traditional POCs for Network Evaluation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRztVZ3Abto)

## Transcript

\[00:00:08\]
Hello everyone and welcome back to Aviz Networks podcast series. I'm your host \[00:00:10\]
Shruti Jha, digital marketing manager at \[00:00:13\]
Aviz Networks. Today we are diving into \[00:00:17\]
an exciting and much anticipated event \[00:00:20\]
in the open networking community, the \[00:00:23\]
Sonic Plugfest.

\[00:00:24\]
Joining me is Cody McCain, director of \[00:00:27\]
product management at Aviz Networks.

\[00:00:29\]
Cody's background is truly unique. A \[00:00:31\]
physicist turned networking and cyber \[00:00:34\]
security expert. Over the past 20 years, \[00:00:36\]
he's worked at JP Morgan, Chase, Intel, \[00:00:39\]
Cisco, and much more. His contributions \[00:00:42\]
include securing 11 trillion dollars in \[00:00:45\]
daily transactions, transiting the \[00:00:47\]
network, building mission critical CNI \[00:00:49\]
technologies for enterprise and telco, \[00:00:52\]
and optimizing Kubernetes and container \[00:00:54\]
security at massive scale. Corey, we are \[00:00:57\]
thrilled to have you. Welcome to the \[00:00:58\]
show.

\[00:01:00\]
Thanks Shudy, glad to be here.

\[00:01:02\]
Corey, let's start with the big picture. \[00:01:04\]
What is the main objective of Plugfest \[00:01:06\]
and what do you hope participants walk \[00:01:08\]
away with after attending this event?

\[00:01:12\]
Shy, that's a great question. The main \[00:01:15\]
objective of Plugfest is really to short \[00:01:17\]
circuit the burdensome PC process that \[00:01:19\]
we've all experienced.

\[00:01:21\]
What we can accomplish in a few short \[00:01:23\]
days together far exceeds, you know, \[00:01:25\]
one-off testing with each partner and \[00:01:27\]
customer, especially in this ever \[00:01:29\]
growing Sonic ecosystem.

\[00:01:32\]
Plugfest brings together both customers \[00:01:34\]
and vendors in one place and it allows \[00:01:37\]
our experienced team to work hand-in-hand \[00:01:40\]
with the other participants to test \[00:01:43\]
you know all the most relevant use cases \[00:01:44\]
across really a heterogeneous hardware \[00:01:46\]
landscape and I don't think really \[00:01:49\]
there's any other place that we can have \[00:01:51\]
you know an event providing such deep \[00:01:54\]
insight into the art of the possible \[00:01:57\]
with sonic and open networking.

\[00:02:01\]
So many organizations they run their own \[00:02:03\]
individual POCs or lab trials when \[00:02:06\]
evaluating network operating systems. \[00:02:08\]
Why is Plugfest a more effective \[00:02:10\]
alternative especially for teams that \[00:02:13\]
are comparing NOS options or exploring \[00:02:15\]
Sonic for the first time?

\[00:02:18\]
Yeah. So, you know, if you're an \[00:02:19\]
organization that's exploring Sonic for \[00:02:21\]
the first time or, you know, you're \[00:02:23\]
hoping to expand, you know, your use \[00:02:25\]
cases with it, you know, jumping into a \[00:02:27\]
forum of a huge, you know, number of \[00:02:30\]
experienced Sonic users and vendors, it \[00:02:32\]
really enables you to rapidly expand \[00:02:34\]
your own understanding and learn how \[00:02:36\]
other organizations have successfully \[00:02:38\]
deployed Sonic. You know, our testing \[00:02:40\]
environment, you know, I think it has \[00:02:42\]
something for everyone. you know, if \[00:02:44\]
you're just looking to kick the tires \[00:02:45\]
for the first time or if you're really \[00:02:47\]
wanting to, you know, get the experts \[00:02:50\]
beyond the hardware and software to help \[00:02:52\]
you put your specific use case to the \[00:02:54\]
test, Plugfest is the place to do it.

\[00:02:56\]
This is a place where you can really \[00:02:58\]
surround yourself with a depth of \[00:02:59\]
experience and really help to eliminate \[00:03:02\]
all of your unknown unknowns.

\[00:03:05\]
So, our listeners, they often ask \[00:03:07\]
whether Plugfest evaluates real world \[00:03:09\]
scenarios or just lab only \[00:03:11\]
configurations.

\[00:03:12\]
What kind of real world network use \[00:03:15\]
cases will Plugfest focus on and why are \[00:03:19\]
these specific scenarios so critical for \[00:03:21\]
modern data centers and AI-driven \[00:03:23\]
infrastructures?

\[00:03:24\]
Yeah, we bring together real world \[00:03:27\]
test cases and ensure the protocols and \[00:03:30\]
hardware that you have will actually \[00:03:33\]
deploy. You know, our tests focus on \[00:03:35\]
three critical areas. You know, we want \[00:03:38\]
to look at the feature and \[00:03:39\]
functionality. \[00:03:40\]
We want to look at scalability and we \[00:03:42\]
want to look at real world operational \[00:03:44\]
use cases and typically this testing \[00:03:47\]
includes for example the scalability and \[00:03:49\]
resiliency of IPC class networks. Uh we \[00:03:52\]
want to look at how ECMP failover and \[00:03:54\]
convergence works in the real world. \[00:03:57\]
You know this is a real world \[00:03:59\]
environment. So we want to look at \[00:04:00\]
things like reboot and change management \[00:04:03\]
scenarios. And additionally, we can \[00:04:05\]
explore design and planning tools for AI \[00:04:08\]
scale out, scale across scenarios and \[00:04:11\]
how to increase operational efficiency \[00:04:13\]
with AI assistant tooling such as our \[00:04:15\]
network co-pilot.

\[00:04:16\]
Organizations, they always want \[00:04:18\]
assurance that the results are objective \[00:04:20\]
and credible. How does Plugfest ensure \[00:04:23\]
that the outcomes are meaningful, \[00:04:25\]
unbiased, and reflective of real \[00:04:27\]
production environments? What does the \[00:04:29\]
validation and reporting process \[00:04:31\] 
actually look like?

\[00:04:33\]
No, that that's extremely important. You \[00:04:35\]
know, if we were to break down our \[00:04:37\]
standard operating procedure for this \[00:04:39\]
event, you know, there’s really two \[00:04:41\]
important key characteristics that we \[00:04:44\]
include. Uh neutrality and transparency. \[00:04:47\]
You know, every test that we execute \[00:04:49\]
during Plugfest is designed based on \[00:04:50\]
input from our customer advisory board. \[00:04:53\]
And that board spans everybody from \[00:04:55\]
cloud service providers, financial \[00:04:57\]
institutions, enterprises, social \[00:04:59\]
platforms to name a few. We also want to \[00:05:02\]
ensure that each test can be executed by \[00:05:05\]
neutral engineers in an automated and \[00:05:07\]
repeatable way. It doesn’t do us any \[00:05:10\]
good if the test that we’re doing can’t \[00:05:12\]
be executed by you in your own lab. And \[00:05:15\]
the focus is not typically on \[00:05:17\]
competitive analysis across vendors, but \[00:05:20\]
rather Sonic NS and Sonic ecosystem \[00:05:22\] 
readiness. You know after all this \[00:05:25\]
testing has been completed uh we'll \[00:05:27\]
produce a comprehensive report that \[00:05:29\]
provides you know number one a high-level \[00:05:32\]
summary of the feature and the scaling \[00:05:34\]
and the operational support across each \[00:05:35\]
vendor

\[00:05:36\]
and then we like to dive into uh you \[00:05:39\]
know a very detailed component level \[00:05:40\]
summary. you know we want to focus on \[00:05:42\]
platform readiness management \[00:05:43\]
capabilities you know layer 2 function \[00:05:46\]
um and scaling layer three function and \[00:05:48\]
scaling and you know most importantly \[00:05:50\]
day2 operations and then you know \[00:05:53\]
finally uh we tried to go in and provide \[00:05:56\]
a very detailed analysis you know even \[00:05:58\]
down to the protocol layer in each of \[00:06:00\] 
those same areas

\[00:06:02\] 
enterprises still running proprietary \[00:06:04\]
solutions they often have hesitations \[00:06:06\]
about switching what's the biggest \[00:06:08\]
misconceptions you hear about moving to \[00:06:10\]
Sonic \[00:06:11\]

And how does Plugfest help \[00:06:12\]
organizations overcome or validate those \[00:06:15\]
concerns?

\[00:06:17\]
Oh, that's a great question. You know, \[00:06:19\]
as human, I think our our strongest \[00:06:21\]
emotion is probably fear and that's \[00:06:24\]
often manifested as fear of the unknown. \[00:06:26\]
You know, there's a lot of fear, \[00:06:27\]
uncertainty, and doubt when you're \[00:06:29\]
considering moving away from an \[00:06:30\]
established vendor ecosystem. You know, \[00:06:32\]
will they have all the features I need? \[00:06:34\]
Uh will it support my use case? You \[00:06:36\]
know, how easy is it to operate, to \[00:06:38\]
automate? And you know the list of \[00:06:40\]
questions goes on and on. And you know I \[00:06:42\]
think the truth is existing vendors you \[00:06:44\]
know beyond the traditional open and \[00:06:47\]
white box vendors are all getting behind \[00:06:49\]
Sonic.

\[00:06:50\]
It's no longer a very niche field but a \[00:06:53\]
field that's being adopted widely across \[00:06:55\]
our entire industry. And you know if if \[00:06:59\]
we want to draw an analogy I I I think \[00:07:01\]
it's it's very similar to the \[00:07:02\]
overwhelming adoption of open source \[00:07:05\]
over the last decade by well established \[00:07:07\]
you know proprietary software vendors.

\[00:07:09\]
And you know much like Linux you know \[00:07:11\]
Sonic adoption is is not a matter of if \[00:07:14\]
but when. And I think Plugfest is an \[00:07:16\]
opportunity for customers to shine a \[00:07:18\]
light on what's unknown to them and put \[00:07:21\]
it to the test you know all of their \[00:07:23\]
requirements in a very neutral and \[00:07:24\]
rigorous test environment.

\[00:07:27\]
So Cody uh that was question that I had. \[00:07:31\]
Thank you for sharing such valuable \[00:07:32\]
insights. Plugfest is clearly becoming \[00:07:34\]
one of the most important touch points \[00:07:36\]
for organizations who want to evaluate \[00:07:38\]
Sonic and your perspective really brings \[00:07:41\]
that to life. To our listeners, if \[00:07:43\]
you're considering open networking or \[00:07:45\]
want to validate Sonic for your \[00:07:47\]
infrastructure, this is the perfect time \[00:07:48\]
to get involved. Plugfest testing it \[00:07:51\]
begins in January 5th and we will be \[00:07:54\]
sharing the full result during the \[00:07:55\]
Plugfest readout webinar on January \[00:07:58\]
15th. Register now, secure a spot and be \[00:08:01\]
part of this industrywide evaluation. We \[00:08:04\]
cannot wait to see you there.

\[00:08:06\]
Thanks Trudy. I really hope that you \[00:08:07\]
will take the opportunity to come join \[00:08:09\]
us at Plugfest. I think it'll be a great \[00:08:12\]
place for you to explore, learn, put \[00:08:15\]
your use cases to the test, and get to \[00:08:17\]
sit with the experts all the way across \[00:08:20\]
the Sonic community.

\[00:08:22\]
Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you \[00:08:24\]
in the next episode.