SONiC NOS Deployment
Production-ready SONiC builds with IS-CLI, YANG models, and operator workflows -- validated across 14+ feature domains before cutover.
SOLUTION
SONiC &
Open Networking
for Production
PalC delivers deep, hands-on SONiC expertise -- from initial design and NOS customisation to multi-vendor integration, automation, and stable day-2 operations at production scale.
CORE CAPABILITIES
End-to-end SONiC expertise,
from design to operations
PalC's open networking practice covers the full stack -- NOS customisation, multi-vendor integration, automation, and long-term production operations.
NOS Customisation & Porting
Platform-specific SONiC porting to new ASIC families -- Broadcom, Marvell Gen-6/6, Mellanox -- with full SAI layer integration and regression suites.
IntelliSuite Validation
SONiC validation platform -- test before you deploy. 700+ automated test cases covering routing, forwarding, failover, and protocol conformance at scale.
Network Automation & GitOps
Ansible-based automation pipelines, Netfabric fabric management, and GitOps workflows -- from blueprint provisioning to drift detection and remediation.
gNMI Telemetry & Observability
End-to-end telemetry pipelines from SONiC switch to NOC dashboards -- gNMI streaming, Grafana integration, alerting, and SNMP bridging.
SONiC Guardian & Lifecycle Ops
Ongoing lifecycle governance -- automated compliance checks, change management workflows, upgrade orchestration, and rollback capabilities for running networks.
SONIC ADOPTION
Why enterprises and
operators are moving to SONiC
SONIC VS PROPRIETARY NOS -- PRODUCTION PERSPECTIVE
| Capability | SONiC | Proprietary |
|---|---|---|
| Open-source & fully auditable | ✓ | ✕ |
| Run on any whitebox hardware | ✓ | ✕ |
| gNMI streaming telemetry | ✓ | Varies |
| EVPN-VXLAN, BGP, MLAG | ✓ | ✓ |
| Zero vendor lock-in | ✓ | ✕ |
| Community-driven features | ✓ | Partial |
| Cost-efficient at scale | ✓ | ✕ |
| OCP / ONF ecosystem aligned | ✓ | ✕ |
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1Break vendor lock-in for good
Decouple the NOS from hardware. Run validated SONiC builds on Edgecore, Celestica, Dell, UfiSpace, or any OCP-compliant platform without switching your entire stack.
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2Production-grade from day one
PalC's SONiC NOS ships with 700+ IntelliSuite-validated test cases across 14 feature domains -- failover under 200ms, 100G line rate proven before any traffic moves.
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3Streaming telemetry, natively
gNMI, gRPC, and SNMP built-in. Plug your SONiC nodes directly into Grafana or your existing NOC dashboards -- no additional agents, collectors, or middleware.
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4Automation-first operations
Netfabric-driven provisioning, Ansible-based change management, and GitOps workflows mean your network behaves like well-managed infrastructure -- not a black box.
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5OCP & community ecosystem
PalC actively contributes to OCP, ONF, and the broader SONiC community. Your deployment stays aligned with where open networking is heading -- not locked to a vendor's roadmap.
MIGRATION PATH
Structured path from proprietary NOS to SONiC
Five phases. Live traffic preserved throughout. PalC owns the full migration engineering -- you own the outcome.
Phase 1
Network Audit
Topology, config, traffic profiles, and hardware inventory fully mapped and assessed
Phase 2
SONiC Design
Hardware selection, NOS build, feature mapping, and lab environment set up
Phase 3
IntelliSuite Validate
700+ automated tests across routing, forwarding, failover, and scale -- no cutover without a passing suite
Phase 4
Staged Cutover
Phased production migration with live traffic preserved and immediate rollback capability
Phase 5
Day-2 Operations
Telemetry pipelines, runbooks, automation, and ongoing lifecycle governance in production
INTEGRATED TOOLS
SONiC deployment architecture from bring-up to production operations
Complete workflow from hardware bring-up to production deployment. Key stages include ONIE installation, SONiC image build and deployment, provisioning, custom configuration, and telemetry pipeline integration.
Click a component in the diagram or panel to explore details.
Hardware Bring-upPhysical hardware installation and power-on
ONIE InstallationOpen Network Install Environment setup
Base Image BuildSONiC image compilation and customization
SONiC Image DeploymentImage installation via ONIE - ZTP or USB
Provisioning EngineAutomated configuration management
Custom requirement specific ConfigLayer 2/3 overlay network configuration
Telemetry PipelinegNMI, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus integration
Components
Hardware Bring-up
Physical hardware installation, power-on, and baseline validation.
- ODM and merchant silicon platform support
- Pre-deployment hardware validation
- Consistent bring-up across multi-vendor gear
First step in SONiC deployment pipeline.
ONIE Installation
Open Network Install Environment setup for network switches.
- Standardized boot and install flow
- Automated image installation
- Foundation for SONiC image deployment
Required for disaggregated switch provisioning.
Base Image Build
SONiC image compilation and customization for target platforms.
- Vendor-agnostic SONiC builds
- Feature and protocol customization
- Production-hardened images
Used across supported ASIC platforms.
SONiC Image Deployment
Image installation via ONIE, ZTP, or USB across the fabric.
- Automated or manual install flows
- Rollback and version management
- Scale-out deployment patterns
Deploy to spine, leaf, and edge nodes.
Provisioning Engine
Automated configuration management and day-0/day-1 provisioning.
- Template-based configuration
- gNMI and REST API integration
- Zero-touch and low-touch deployment
Central to configuration automation.
Custom requirement specific Config
Layer 2/3 overlay network configuration for scalable fabrics (for example EVPN-VXLAN).
- EVPN control plane with VXLAN data plane
- Multi-tenant and segment isolation
- BGP-based overlay scaling
Applied across spine and leaf layers.
Telemetry Pipeline
gNMI, OpenTelemetry, and Prometheus integration for observability.
- Streaming telemetry and metrics
- Integration with monitoring stacks
- Operational visibility at scale
End-to-end observability for SONiC fabrics.
Fabric Specifications
- Spine Bandwidth400GbE per port
- Leaf Bandwidth100 / 200GbE
- Overlay ProtocolEVPN-VXLAN
- Underlay RoutingeBGP / Unnumbered BGP
- RedundancyMLAG + dual-home
SONiC NOS Features
- Protocol SuiteBGP, OSPF, ISIS, MPLS
- L2 FeaturesMLAG, STP, LACP, QinQ
- TelemetrygNMI, gRPC, SNMP
- ManagementIS-CLI, REST, YANG
- SecurityACL, MACsec, CoPP
Validated Hardware Platforms
- Edgecore NetworksCertified
- CelesticaCertified
- Dell / UfiSpaceCertified
- Wistron / MiCASCertified
- Ragile / SupermicroValidated
DEPLOYMENT SERVICES
What PalC delivers at every stage
Engineering-led services across design, implementation, validation, and ongoing operations -- so your SONiC network works reliably in the real world.
Design & Architecture
Topology, hardware selection, and NOS scoping
- Leaf-spine topology design aligned to workload profiles
- Hardware selection from validated ODM ecosystem
- SONiC NOS feature scoping and build customisation
- IP addressing, VRF, and overlay design
- High-availability and redundancy architecture
Validation & Testing
IntelliSuite-driven pre-production testing
- 700+ automated test cases across 14+ feature domains
- Protocol conformance -- BGP, OSPF, EVPN, MLAG
- Failover validation -- sub-200ms recovery time
- Scale testing against real traffic profiles
- Regression suites for ongoing NOS upgrades
Day-2 Operations
Production support, telemetry, and lifecycle
- gNMI telemetry pipeline setup and NOC integration
- Runbook development for common operational scenarios
- SONiC Guardian -- compliance checks and change governance
- Upgrade orchestration with rollback capability
- 24/7 TAC support via support.palcnetworks.com
USE CASES
Where SONiC & open networking is applied
AI & GPU Cluster Fabrics
SONiC-based leaf-spine fabrics for AI training and inference -- RoCE v2, PFC, and DCQCN tuned for high-throughput GPU communication at scale.
Data Centre Modernisation
Replacing legacy proprietary switch infrastructure with open, disaggregated architectures -- lower TCO, full operational control, and no vendor lock-in.
Telecom & Metro Edge
SONiC deployments for xHaul transport, core aggregation, and carrier edge -- aligned with TIP and ONF open networking standards.
BFSI & Financial Infrastructure
High-availability, low-latency SONiC networks for trading platforms, payment infrastructure, and core banking -- with full audit trail and compliance visibility.
NOS Porting & ASIC Integration
Porting commercial and community NOS builds to new ASIC families -- Marvell Gen-6, Broadcom Tomahawk, Mellanox Spectrum -- with full SAI layer development.
Network Observability Platforms
Disaggregated Packet Broker deployments for traffic aggregation, filtering, and tool delivery -- replacing proprietary TAP switches with open, SONiC-based visibility fabric.
OPEN ECOSYSTEM
Active contributors to the SONiC community
PalC doesn't just deploy SONiC -- we contribute to the projects and standards bodies that shape where open networking is heading.
OCP Member
Open Compute Project (OCP)
Active participant in OCP's open networking workstream -- including SONiC workshops at OCP EMEA Summit and contributions to the OCP SAI project.
PalC ContributionSONiC Workshop lead at OCP OMEA Summit -- advancing production deployment best practices for open networking.
ONF Aligned
ONF & CORD / VOLTHA
Engineering contributions to ONF VOLTHA OLT certification and CORD-based access aggregation -- bringing SONiC into telecoms open access infrastructure.
PalC ContributionONF VOLTHA OLT certification engineering -- validated open access infrastructure for carrier-grade PON deployments.
No Vendor Lock-in
Open architecture across NOS and hardware -- switch ODMs freely
Production Validated
700+ automated tests before any traffic moves to production
Full Observability
gNMI telemetry built-in -- your NOC sees everything from day one
Automation-First
Netfabric and GitOps workflows -- reproducible, auditable changes
Scales with You
Leaf-spine designs that stay manageable as infrastructure grows
Proven outcomes from the field
Deployments across AI fabrics, multi-cloud, automation, and security.
Proven outcomes from the field
Deployments across AI fabrics, multi-cloud, automation, and security.
ODM PARTNERS
TRUSTED BY LEADING TECHNOLOGY PARTNERS
Next steps
Planning a SONiC-led open networking rollout?
Share your target architecture, hardware platforms, and migration goals. PalC can help design, validate, and operationalise a production-ready SONiC deployment.
