n: Cloud data center standardization around x86 CPU hardware fostered a vibrant open software ecosystem. Similarly, for network edge, standardizing the hard- ware around switch merchant silicon could pave the way for a vibrant open software ecosystem. For a disaggregated ecosystem to operate efficiently, there needs to be a high volume of common underlying silicon or a robust open hardware abstraction layer that interfaces to any target silicon to maintain interoperability between many independent hardware and software players. To date, it has been the former model with Broadcom's Trident/Tomahawk providing the common silicon base for network operating system (NOS) software. But there are major efforts underway targeting the latter model with investments to create a robust open hardware abstraction layer (Section 12.7.2) SO that software development investments can effectively compile and work on a large market of target hardware platforms. Hardware abstraction layers hold promise to enable multivendor silicon but this ecosystem is still immature. "Whitebox" is an industry term for unbranded or unlabeled boxes that are provided by ODM or contract manufacturers that match an open specification and most commonly in a small form factor (1 or 2 rack it-1RU or 2RU) using an SOC merchant silicon processor. By a chassis we mean closed and branded rack with a proprietary backplane to interconnect branded line cards that compose a router or switch. The move from blackbox to whitebox by Web 2.0 companies has been tremendously successful in driving down the cost per bit for packet transport. However, adopting whiteboxes creates addi- tional responsibilities. In a pure whitebox model, users are responsible for incremental lifecycle costs of hardware selection and development, ODM selection and development, integration, test, quality assurance, lifecycle management, and 7 X 24 platform support and maintenance. A more refined view is emerging that falls between blackbox and whitebox known as "gray- box." This optimizes the lev