RtBrick's FullStack routing software is a new way to build and run your network, applying a cloud-native approach to deliver multiservice edge routing software that is more robust, more controllable and costs far less than a conventional network. Disaggregating your routing software from hardware allows you to build a lower-cost and more flexible network, using software that delivers at carrier-scale.

Multservice Use-Cases and Applications

RtBrick's modular code makes it suitable for many use-cases that require robust and highly scalable IP/MPLS routing, including:

• BNG (Broadband Network Gateway)
• PE Router
• Peering Router
• CGNAT (Carrier Grade Network Address Translation)
• L2 Metro Ethernet Switch

The code can be provided in an image that provides different combinations of edge services, as required.

Proven 

Although network disaggregation is relatively new to networking, it has already been proven in many operational telco networks around the world. For example, RtBrick’s software is displacing Juniper Networks in Deutsche Telekom’s fixed broadband edge, scaling to 20 million subscribers, with open switches from UfiSpace already deployed in over 450 central offices in Germany. RtBrick is also being used by many smaller ISPs around the world for residential and business services and providing CGNAT. Volkswagen’s HQ is connected with services from WOBCOM, for example, who run their network on RtBrick’s software and UfiSpace switches. 

Vendor Flexibility 

Disaggregating hardware and breaks the lock-in and dependence on traditional vendors. You can choose hardware and software independently of each other, allowing you to repurpose hardware in the future and increasing the security of supply without the need to re-tool for a new NOS. 

High Availability

RtBrick uses time-hardened routing protocols to deliver resiliency and recovery, such as BGP, MPLS and IS-IS, all written in-house and run as independent microservices.

RtBrick uses time-hardened routing protocols to deliver resiliency and recovery, such as BGP, MPLS and IS-IS, all written in-house and run as independent microservices. Using a modern microservices architecture means: 

• Each protocol or service runs independently
• Failures are isolated to specific components
• Individual services can restart without impacting the entire system

This also makes it far simpler, and faster, for RtBrick to test, isolate and fix any bugs in the routing software, as the microservices can be treated independently of one another, rather than the whole routing stack having to be treated as a single ‘black box’, with millions of lines of interdependent code to investigate and test. Stateful high availability allows IPoE subscribers to be re-established without them even noticing a failure. RtBrick can re-learn and repopulate a router’s FIB table faster than any other router available.

Next Generation Operations

Unlike traditional routing operating systems, RtBrick’s routing software exposes every metric that can be measured by the NOS (Network Operating System), through a single API and from a single database. It uses an in-built Prometheus time-series data base that can be exposed through a Grafana interface to flag any alarms and threshold to the operator that they choose. This can include any parameter, from the number packets sent across a specific port to the speed of the fans running in the switch, or the temperature of the CPU. 

Low-Cost Power-Efficient Hardware

RtBrick’s software is tightly integrated with a range of networking silicon from Broadcom, and has been validated with open switches from vendors such as UfiSpace and Edgecore. Open switch hardware can scale down as well as up, with throughputs from 800Gbps to 7.2Tbps. Even larger scales can be achieved by using a spine-leaf topology, where subscriber-facing switches are connected together via spine switches, using a standards-based MPLS mesh to interconnect the elements. The spine switches connect to the network core. Only the required software features need be deployed on leaf or spine switches respectively. 

In general, the ability of open switches to use the latest merchant silicon means they use less power per-Gbps than traditional routers.

RtBrick's Full Stack routing software can operate on many open switches, depending on your performance and port count requirements. You can find details of compatible hardware here.

Features

The features supported by RtBrick FullStack are expanding all the time, because it's much faster for us to add and test new features than it is using a traditional monolithic code base. Currently supported features include:

* may include some road-map features