Networking - SAI _ Switch Abstraction Interface - Sub-Project - (2026-06-04)

Why It Matters

Standardizing OFH semantics and restricting a single active header type per cluster will reduce runtime complexity and deployment risk for ML-sensitive switches, but requires community alignment on header encodings and ether-type handling before adoption.

Summary

The SAI Switch Abstraction Interface sub-project meeting reviewed a large pull request that introduces an optimized forwarding header (OFH) object and restructures how switch and port bindings reference header types. The proposal constrains deployments to a single OFH type and version per switch (with optional per-port overrides), simplifies the switch binding from a list to a single object, and introduces a three-level hierarchy (type, subtype, version) to accommodate AFH, EEN and placeholder UFH definitions. Jay described incremental commits, a cleaned-up PR to show base attributes and an example header, and flagged several open questions around ether-type semantics, subtype defaults, and integration with community specs. The team agreed the changes are foundational and must be settled before layering further API work, with plans to close and re-open a cleaner PR once consensus is reached.

Original Description

Public call recording of Networking - SAI _ Switch Abstraction Interface sub-project.