Reference

Network Glossary

Definitions for open networking — SONiC, RDMA, switching silicon, and related terms for engineers and architects.

A

  • ASIC

    A chip custom-built for one task; in a switch the forwarding ASIC moves packets in hardware at line rate.

R

  • RoCEv2

    RDMA over routable UDP/IP Ethernet (UDP 4791) for low-latency, low-CPU transfers in AI/HPC fabrics; depends on near-lossless Ethernet (PFC/ECN).

S

  • SONiC

    SONiC decouples the network operating system from switch hardware. Built on Linux with a containerized architecture, it programs switching ASICs through SAI (the Switch Abstraction Interface), so the…

  • SR-IOV

    PCIe feature that splits one physical NIC into many virtual functions, letting VMs and containers bypass the hypervisor for near-native I/O.

T

  • Teralynx 10

    Marvell 51.2 Tbps programmable switch ASIC for 800G AI/ML fabrics—ultra-low latency, high radix, 200MB+ buffers.

  • Teralynx 7

    Marvell 3.2–12.8 Tbps programmable switch ASIC for 100G–400G leaf/spine—~500 ns latency, large buffers, AI/HPC fabrics.

V

  • VPP

    User-space framework that forwards packets in cache-friendly vectors (batches) on commodity CPUs; used to build software routers and dataplanes.

Z

  • ZTP

    A switch self-configures on first boot by fetching its IP, OS image and config from network servers — no manual CLI needed.