Tao Ren, Meta
New Switch Platform Standardization Effort Announced at OCP
The Open Compute Project Foundation (OCP) is happy to announced a new in-progress contribution to the OCP Networking Project: the Open Switch Platform Architecture (OSPA) specification, which is currently undergoing Foundation review as part of the OCP contribution process.
OSPA establishes a vendor-neutral reference architecture for the switch platform layer that aims to end the era of proprietary, fragmented platform design. This effort was initiated by Meta, Microsoft, and Alibaba, with significant collaborative input from industry partners: Accton, Arista, Celestica, Cisco, DTI, Micas, Nexthop, Nvidia and Wistron.
The draft OSPA Specification (Revision 1.0.0 candidate) is currently under review and available at:
Why OSPA?
While standards like SAI, and its adoption by FBOSS, and SONiC have made the data plane software portable, the switch platform layer remains the final frontier of proprietary fragmentation in open networking. Critical platform functions—such as device enumeration, thermal control, and firmware updates—are still re-implemented for every new hardware SKU. This creates a profound inefficiency where identical ASICs from different manufacturers present completely different platforms to the operating system.
OSPA addresses the challenge by defining a vendor-neutral reference architecture. It enables true software reuse, simplifying and accelerating the platform onboarding process—a crucial capability in the fast-paced AI industry where rapid deployment is essential.
What does this mean for you?
- For ODMs/OEMs: Develop a consistent switch hardware platform architecture for different customers. Reduce development cycle time by standardizing the management layer.
- For Network Operators: Achieve consistent platform behavior and easier onboarding of new hardware from different vendors
What is OSPA?
The Open Switch Platform Architecture (OSPA) specification defines a reference architecture for the switch platform layer. It establishes standardized interfaces and design guidelines across 7 core functional areas: Power Management, Hardware Access, Hardware Inventory Management, Environment Monitoring and Control, Firmware Maintenance and Recovery, Debuggability, and Security.
By codifying these common platform design guidelines into a shared reference design, new switch platforms can onboard more efficiently—leveraging reusable hardware designs and readily available software stacks rather than building from the ground up.
Key Focus Areas:
- In-Host Management Model: OSPA centralizes platform management services on the Host subsystem, integrating them directly into the primary software ecosystem. The BMC is restricted to essential supervisory tasks—such as power management, Host bring-up, leak protection, and troubleshooting—serving as an independent mechanism for recovering an unresponsive Host.
- Peripheral Aggregation: I/O Bridge (IOB) FPGAs attached over PCIe aggregate the platform’s I2C, SPI, GPIO, MDIO, and LED controllers into memory-mapped, low-latency interface, replacing fragmented sideband buses with a predictable access path.
- Hardware Inventory Management: The Atomic Platform Entity (APE) model defines the smallest unit of hardware that platform software tracks. APEs form a tree rooted at a single Root APE, with IDPROM requirements at each node, making device enumeration a deterministic top-down traversal.
- Autonomous Power Management: Features PMBus-observable power supplies, autonomous power sequencing to a known safe state independent of software.
- Thermal Safety: Fan management strategy, multi-tier ASIC overheat protection, and liquid leak detection.
- Firmware Maintenance and Recovery: SPI-preferred firmware upgrade path so standard Linux tooling works out of the box, A/B bank redundancy on critical images, dual-path recovery, etc.
- Debuggability: Standardized IPMI/SEL, POST code and CPU error reporting, hardware fault logger, etc.
OSPA Scope
This specification is limited to the switch platform management layer. Although software-centric, it includes necessary hardware context for seamless integration, while excluding pure hardware design details.
Data and control plane operations—such as routing protocols and forwarding management—are outside the scope of this document.
Initial Contributors
We thank the initial group of OCP members who have started the OSPA effort:
- Meta
- Microsoft
- Alibaba
Contributions to this specification are made under the Modified Open Web Foundation Agreement 0.9 (OWFa 0.9), and the contributors have established a governance framework covering proposal evaluation, conflict resolution, and version control so that the specification advances collaboratively rather than serving any single fleet.
Acknowledgements
Revision 0.9.0 reflects an early review cycle with the switch vendor community, and the OSPA Working Group thanks the following organizations for their valuable feedback and contributions to the WIP specification:
- Accton
- Arista
- Celestica
- Cisco
- Data Touch Innovative Technologies
- Micas
- Nexthop
- Nvidia
- Wistron
Individual reviewers are credited in the Acknowledgements section of the specification.
We invite all interested parties to join us — switch ODMs and OEMs, network operators, NOS projects, and platform software developers — in shaping the future of the switch platform layer!
Join the Conversation
As usual at OCP, OSPA will be developed through regular, open meetings and a public review process.
For more details, please visit the OSPA GitHub repository or reach out via our email group at [email protected].
You can also monitor the OCP Networking Project’s mailing list and calendar for updates, or join our session at the OCP Global Summit 2026.
Let’s standardize the platform layer and build switch platforms that work with open software on day one!