Dell Networking Operating System

DNOS or Dell Networking Operating System is an operating system running on switches from Dell Networking. It is derived from either the PowerConnect OS (DNOS 6.x) or Force10 OS/FTOS (DNOS 9.x) and will be made available for the 10G and faster Dell Networking S-series switches, the Z-series 40G core switches and DNOS6 is available for the N-series switches.

The DNOS family comes in a few main versions:

Only the PowerConnect 8100 will be able to run on DNOS 6.x: all other PowerConnect ethernet switches will continue to run its own PowerConnect OS (on top of VxWorks) while the PowerConnect W-series run on a Dell specific version of ArubaOS. The Dell Networking S- xxxx and Z9x00 series will run on DNOS where the other Dell Networking switches will continue to run FTOS 8.x firmware.

OS10 is a Linux-based open networking OS that can run on all ONIE switches. As it runs directly in a Linux environment network admins can highly automate the network platform and manage the switches in a similar way as the (Linux) servers. OS10 is still under development, but available for testing and development.

Three of the four product families from Dell Networking are using the Broadcom Trident+ ASICs, but the company doesn't use the APIs from Broadcom: the developers at Dell Networking have written their own Hardware Abstraction Layer so that DNOS 9.x can run on different hardware platforms with minimal impact for the firmware. Currently three of the four DN switch families are based on the Broadcom Trident family (while the 4th - the E-series- run on self-developed ASICs); and two of them are running DNOS 9.x (S- and Z- series) and if the product developers want or need to use different hardware for new products they only need to develop a HAL for that new hardware and the same firmware can run on it. This keeps the company flexible and not dependent on a specific hardware-vendor and can use both 3rd party or self designed ASICs and chipsets.

The underlying OS on which DNOS 9.x, runs, is based on NetBSD (while the DNOS 6.x runs on a Linux kernel), an implementation which is often used in embedded networking-systems. NetBSD is a very stable, open source, OS running on many different hardware platforms. By choosing for a proven technology with extended TCP functionality built into the core of the OS it reduces time during development of new products or extending the DNOS with new features.

...
Wikipedia