cloudparts

SONiC Foundation

The Linux Foundation’s home for SONiC, the open-source network operating system Microsoft built for Azure’s switches: members fund it, and an elected seven-seat steering committee runs the code.

1 projects in this catalogPart of the Linux FoundationWebsite

What it is

The SONiC Foundation is part of the non-profit Linux Foundation. SONiC moved there on April 14, 2022, six years after Microsoft open-sourced it, and the Linux Foundation adopted a technical charter for the SONiC Foundation the same day. It hosts one project, SONiC (Software for Open Networking in the Cloud), a Linux-based operating system for data centre switches. The Linux Foundation looks after the software, while the Open Compute Project (OCP), where Microsoft first contributed SONiC and the Switch Abstraction Interface (SAI), keeps working on hardware and on specifications such as SAI. At the move, its premier members included Alibaba, Broadcom, Dell, Google, Intel, Microsoft and NVIDIA, with more than 50 partners.

Money and code are governed separately. Members join at Premier, General or Associate level, the last free for open-source projects, academic and non-profit organisations, and pay into the SONiC Fund of the Linux Foundation, run by a Governing Board. Under the charter, all technical oversight belongs to a Technical Steering Committee (TSC) of a chair and six elected seats, with two-year terms, Condorcet elections and no more than two representatives from any one company; the TSC can refer a vote it can’t resolve to the Governing Board. Code is under the Apache License 2.0, and the SONiC trademarks are held by the Linux Foundation.

For someone choosing a technology, the badge means SONiC’s name and direction no longer belong to Microsoft alone: in October 2026 the foundation listed 14 premier members, including Alibaba, Arista, Broadcom, Cisco, Dell, Google, Marvell, Microsoft, Nokia and NVIDIA, which compete with each other in switches and chips. It is not a support contract: the community publishes source and images, and support comes from the enterprise-ready SONiC distributions that networking vendors increasingly offer. There are no maturity stages.

Its projects in this catalog

SONiCOpen sourceSoftware for Open Networking in the Cloud: a Linux-based network operating system for data centre switches, built by Microsoft for Azure, that runs on hardware from many vendors through a common chip interface.

In depth

Members and AI networking#

Membership has kept growing as AI clusters drove demand for open, multi-vendor switching. In July 2026 Supranett joined as a premier member, with Exaware, TeraHop and Infrawaves as general members; in October 2026 Lenovo, NADDOD and Zhanwang (NEXAI) joined as general members. In October 2026 the foundation’s join page showed 14 premier members, among them newer AI networking companies Nexthop AI and Upscale AI, 23 general members and five associate members.

Analysts cited by Network World in October 2026 put the scale in numbers: Gartner estimates about 2,500 organisations run SONiC in production, roughly a third of them enterprises; 650 Group expects SONiC-based data centre switching revenue to top $5 billion in 2026; and the Linux Foundation counts more than 4,300 contributors. About 18 months earlier the community had realigned its roadmap around AI data centre workloads.

Where it came from2015–2026

Microsoft built SONiC to run the switches in Azure’s data centres on hardware from any vendor. It contributed SAI, a common API to switch chips, to the Open Compute Project in 2015 and open-sourced SONiC at the OCP summit on March 9, 2016, with contributions from Arista, Broadcom, Dell and Mellanox. For six years it was developed under OCP, with a project leader appointed by Microsoft.

SONiC moved to the Linux Foundation on April 14, 2022, to give it neutral governance; Microsoft’s Dave Maltz said the move was meant to take the community to its next jump in scale, participation and usage. The SONiC Foundation’s charter, adopted that day, set up a TSC whose first members were appointed by the Governing Board, with elections six months later; it was amended in May 2026.

By 2026 AI data centres had become the main driver. New premier and general members joined through the year, and the foundation took its message to the OCP Global Summit in October 2026.

Why it’s built this way

Software at the Linux Foundation, hardware at OCP
SAI and switch hardware specifications already had a home at the Open Compute Project, so the Linux Foundation took on the software and partnered with OCP rather than duplicating it.
Members fund, an elected TSC decides
Paying members sit on the Governing Board of the SONiC Fund, but the charter gives all technical oversight to a TSC elected by the community, capped at two seats per company so no single vendor controls it.
Apache 2.0 with the trademark held by the Linux Foundation
A permissive licence lets switch vendors ship their own distributions, while trademark rules decide which of them may call their product SONiC.

Timeline

  1. 2015

    OCP accepts Microsoft’s Switch Abstraction Interface in July

  2. 2016

    Microsoft open-sources SONiC at the OCP summit on March 9

  3. 2022

    SONiC moves to the Linux Foundation on April 14; SONiC Foundation charter adopted

  4. 2026

    Charter amended in May; new members join in July and October

Sources · facts checked 2026-10-28

Improve this page on GitHub