Linux Foundation Archives

May 11

ONAP, The De Facto Open Network Automation Platform, Goes Cloud-Native in Honolulu

By Brandon Wick Announcement

ONAP’s Honolulu release adds even more cloud native and modular capabilities, and robust integration with O-RAN
ONAP is an Instrumental component of Linux Foundation Networking’s 5G Super Blueprint, enabling orchestration, management and automation across the entire 5G end-to-end stack
Over 200 developers from 30 organizations collaborated to produce Honolulu, ONAP’s eighth release

SAN FRANCISCO – May 11, 2021 – LF Networking (LFN), which facilitates collaboration and operational excellence across open source networking projects, today announced the availability of the ONAP Honolulu release. The most integrated ONAP release to date, the arrival of Honolulu coincides with the new 5G Super Blueprint, which works end-to-end across the open source 5G stack enabling easier deployments and automation with Magma 5G Core, ORAN SC, LF Edge Akraino.

“ONAP is an integral component of the 5G Super Blueprint, bringing automation and other management and orchestration capabilities to the end-to-end 5G infrastructure,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, Edge, and IoT, the Linux Foundation. “The Honolulu release—which really brings robust cloud native capabilities to the forefront—coincides with collaborative efforts across open source communities to deliver more scalable, deployable networks across 5G, carrier Wi-Fi, private LTE, and more.”

ONAP’s eighth release, Honolulu, brings even more cloud native functionality with seamless configuration of Helm-based CNFs and Kubernetes. Increased modularity allows users to pick and choose components for specific use cases. Honolulu also brings increased support for the O-RAN A1 standard that provides a flexible way for RAN operators to optimize wide area RAN networks and reduce CAPEX. Significant new functionality was added around end-to-end 5G network slicing with three network slicing components for RAN, core, and transport and better compliance with 3GPP standards.

“From its birth, ONAP has been positioned as a critical Network Automation Platform, continuously growing its 5G footprint and Cloud Native capabilities while playing an active role in CSPs’ RAN virtualization journey”, said Catherine Lefèvre, ONAP TSC Chair. “In addition to our 5G features and O-RAN integration activities, our latest release, Honolulu, is extending Network Slicing functions to support RAN, Core, and Transport domains. Additionally, this release also introduces the concept of best practices and global requirements (design patterns applicable to the whole code base) to ensure we keep enhancing platform robustness. ONAP will remain an important agent of change this year by expanding its scope to include functionalities for Enterprise Customers and Vertical Markets, while enhancing its modularity to enable lightweight packaging tailored to specific use cases.”

Release Highlights:

More Cloud Native Functionality. Honolulu brings cloud native functionality with seamless configuration of Helm based CNFs and K8s resources. This new functionality includes health checks and is implemented in the Controller Design Studio (CDS) and MutliCloud projects. An ONAP cloud native task force meets regularly to explore deeper cloud native integrations.
Deeper 5G Support. Honolulu contains new functionality around end-to-end 5G network slicing, including three components for RAN, core, and transport domains.
Robust ORAN Integration. Increased support for the O-RAN A1 standard implemented in ONAP’s CCSDK and SDN-C projects enables flexibility for RAN operators to manage wide area RAN network optimization, reducing capex investment needs. Further integration improves integration with both O-RAN and 3GPP.
Expanded Modularity & Functionality. Modularity has been an important topic in ONAP to allow users to pick and choose the components they need for their specific use case and Honolulu continues to advance modularity. The Honolulu release also includes new functionality such as new and simplified microservice and KPI deployments; easier validation that improves compliance with 3GPP and O-RAN; OOM now supports IPv4 and IPv6 for all components; SDC includes increased support for ETSI standards; and the CCVPN use case blueprint now supports 3+ network domains (increased from 2).
New Enterprise Use Case. While ONAP has primarily been used by Communication Service Providers (CSPs), the project also recognizes the value of ONAP in the enterprise and the community has started a new ONAP for Enterprise Work Group. The group welcomes participation from new contributors that want to expand the applicability of ONAP.

More details on Honolulu—including new functionalities, blueprints, and 5G use cases—are available via the links provided below. To learn more about ONAP Honolulu, please visit https://www.onap.org/software.

Looking Ahead

The next ONAP release, ‘Istanbul,’ is planned for 2H of 2021.

The LFN Developer & Testing Forum is being held over four days, June 7 – 10, 2021. Once again we will be virtually gathering the LFN project technical communities to progress our releases; discuss project architecture, direction, and integration points; and further innovate through the open source networking stack. More details, including registration information, are available here: https://www.lfnetworking.org/event/lfn-developer-testing-forum-june/.

The Open Networking & Edge (ONE) Summit, the ONE event for end to end connectivity solutions powered by open source and enables the collaborative development necessary to shape the future of networking and edge computing, takes place October 11-12, 2021 in Los Angeles, Calif. The Call For Proposals is currently open and accepting submissions through June 20, 2021. Registration will open soon.

Resources:

ONAP Webinar: Join us today (May 11) at 9:00 AM PT for the Honolulu Webinar. Featuring Catherine Lefevre, AT&T; John Keeney, Ericsson; Swami Seetharaman, Wipro; and Lin Meng, China Mobile | Learn More & Register

About the Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

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The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Sep 21

Love2

Introducing The Linux Foundation’s Open Source Networking Days

By lcaywood Blog

This post, by Arpit Joshipura, first appeared on LinuxFoundation.org.

One of my primary goals at The Linux Foundation is to foster innovation across the entire open source networking ecosystem. This involves coordinating across multiple open source projects and initiatives and identifying key areas for collaboration to create an open source networking stack.

We are working across the entire ecosystem with industry-leading partners — from developers to service providers to vendors — to unify various open source components and create solutions that will accelerate network transformation. As part of this journey, I am pleased to introduce Open Source Networking Days (OSN Days), a series of free events that are hosted and organized by local user groups and The Linux Foundation members, with support from our projects, including DPDK, FD.io, ONAP, OpenDaylight, OPNFV, PNDA, and others.

OSN Days are a fantastic opportunity for network developers and users to learn how ONAP, OPNFV, OpenDaylight and other open source initiatives are changing NFV/SDN orchestration and networking solutions. Stops on the tour include: Paris, Milan, Stockholm, London, Tel Aviv, and Japan. Register today for an upcoming OSN Day in your region.

The day-long events will start with a plenary session where attendees will hear from site hosts and The Linux Foundation speakers on the state of the industry and the collaboration and touch points between projects that make up the open source networking stack. Presenters will also explore how business opportunities like 5G and IoT are enabled by network transformation. In the afternoon, events may feature technical sessions, tutorials, demonstrations, and workshops that empower attendees to participate, contribute, and deepen their knowledge of open source networking.

Our first OSN Day kicks off October 9 in Paris, followed by stops in Milan (October 12), Stockholm (October 13), London (October 16), Tel Aviv (October 19), and Japan (October 19). Thanks to our incredible site hosts Amdocs, ATOS, Cloudify, Ericsson, Huawei, NEC, Orange, RedHat, SUSE and Vodafone, along with our high-caliber roster of speakers, for helping to make these OSN Days a reality!

More details about the events, including site-specific agendas, registration info, and details on hotel and travel, can be found here: https://sites.google.com/linuxfoundation.org/osndays/home. If you have any questions, or would like to host an event yourself in the future, please email OSNDays@linuxfoundation.org.

–Arpit Joshipura

Jun 08

Love1

Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) Project Gains Industry Momentum with New Members and Significant Technical Progress

By Sarah Conway News

New Members Include Leading Global Service Providers and Vendors; Community Pushes Forward on Merged Architecture and Announces Next Developer Forum in China in June

SAN FRANCISCO, June 8, 2017 — The Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) Project today announced that Accenture, CertusNet, Coriant, Juniper Networks, Mavenir, Mirantis, PCCW Global, Red Hat, VEON and Windstream joined as new members to contribute to the open source framework for network automation.

Creating a sustainable ecosystem in support of ONAP will enable operators and vendors to foster innovation and avoid fragmentation of software-defined networks (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) platforms.

ONAP recently announced production-ready code and documentation and continues to make significant technical progress. The growing, vibrant technical ONAP community is working to deliver a neutral automation platform for network, infrastructure and services across service providers, cloud providers and enterprises in today’s software-defined, virtualized era.

Nearly 200 developers, representing major telecom and networking organizations from around the world, met recently in May to map out ONAP’s functional architecture. The group, which will meet again in June 8-9 in Beijing, began identifying project definitions and uses cases like vCPE and VoLTE. Later this year, ONAP plans to release an architecture that seamlessly integrates open source ECOMP and the Open Orchestrator Project (OPEN-O) to support the coming wave of 5G, IoT and cloud applications and services.

“I’m incredibly pleased with the technical energy behind ONAP and the progress the community is making,” said Arpit Joshipura, General Manager, Networking at The Linux Foundation. “The turnout at our first face-to-face developer gathering was amazing. With today’s news, the ONAP braintrust continues to expand, representing more than 35 organizations from around the world. ONAP enables a new business model of faster innovation and is now an integral part of all major vendors in Networking Community.”

Today’s new members recognize that ONAP will disrupt the market, automating the network to deliver efficiencies and business agility to carriers and vendors alike. Current members include a broad mix of major vendors, service providers, system integrators and consultancies: Amdocs, ARM, AT&T, Bell Canada, BOCO Inter-Telecom, Canonical, China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Ciena, Cisco, Cloudbase Solutions, Ericsson, GigaSpaces, Huawei, IBM, Intel, Metaswitch, Microsoft, H3C Technologies, Nokia, Open Networking Foundation, Orange, Raisecom, Reliance Jio, Tech Mahindra, VMware, Wind River and ZTE.

More about the newest members:

Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business functions – underpinned by the world’s largest delivery network – Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With approximately 401,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Working with many global communication service providers, Accenture has vast expertise in building next-generation platforms and SDN/NFV-powered ecosystems, all of which will be beneficial to ONAP.

CertusNet is a world-leading information platform and solution provider. As a pioneer and an advocate of Elastic Network and Elastic Services concepts, the company is committed to providing Elastic Network services covering carrier-grade SDN/NFV solutions, cloud computing, and end-to-end customer experience assurance for global users, enterprises and government agencies. CertusNet strives to continuously improve the user experience, facilitate new services and applications, and help customers generate greater value with its widely trusted Elastic Services. Already a member of OPNFV, by joining industry leaders in the ONAP project, CertusNet is stepping up its contribution to open networks and standards-based software development.

Coriant is a global supplier of SDN-enabled end-to-end packet optical networking and DCI solutions that enable network operators to cost-efficiently scale network capacity, reduce operational complexity, and create the resilient foundation for a new generation of mobile, video, and cloud services. The company is joining ONAP to help accelerate industry adoption of SDN and NFV capabilities that orchestrate and automate service delivery in cloud-centric, SDN-controlled networks.

Juniper Networks challenges the status quo with products, solutions and services that transform the economics of networking. Its team co-innovates with customers and partners to deliver automated, scalable and secure networks with agility, performance and value.

Mavenir accelerates and redefines mobile network transformation for Service Providers, by offering a comprehensive product portfolio across every layer of the network infrastructure stack. From 5G application/service layers to packet core and RAN – Mavenir leads the way in evolved, cloud-native networking solutions enabling innovative and secure experiences for end users. Through its industry first VoLTE, VoWiFi, Advanced Messaging (RCS), Multi ID, Visual Voicemail and Cloud RAN solutions, Mavenir’s platform and mobile expertise will be an asset to the project as it develops cutting-edge use cases like IoT and 5G.

Mirantis delivers open cloud infrastructure to top enterprises using OpenStack, Kubernetes and related open source technologies. The company follows a build-operate-transfer model to deliver its Mirantis Cloud Platform and cloud management services, empowering customers to take advantage of open source innovation with no vendor lock-in. The company has built deep expertise in open source and orchestration in their work with OpenStack, which the company will leverage in their contributions to the ONAP community.

PCCW Global, the international operating division of HKT, Hong Kong’s premier telecommunications service provider, which is majority-owned by PCCW Limited, adds to ONAP’s significant member presence in Asia. Covering more than 3,000 cities and 150 countries, the PCCW Global network supports a portfolio of integrated global communications solutions which include Ethernet, IP, fiber and satellite transmission solutions, international voice and VoIPX services, managed network and security services and expanding “as-a-service” solutions including OTT video and Unified Communications. PCCW Global chose to be part of ONAP with the aim of providing a telco perspective to the organization and to collaborate with all members to expand its scope from a single domain to a multi-domain/carrier environment. This will help achieve operational scale and efficiency as well as ease interoperability.

Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to provide reliable and high-performing cloud, Linux, middleware, storage and virtualization technologies. Red Hat also offers award-winning support, training, and consulting services. As a connective hub in a global network of enterprises, partners, and open source communities, Red Hat helps create innovative technologies designed to liberate resources for growth and prepare customers for the future of IT. The telecommunications industry is accelerating innovation and interoperability in the management and orchestration of NFV applications, and Red Hat is enthusiastic about helping to advance this industry trend.

VEON, a NASDAQ and Euronext Amsterdam listed global provider of communications services, formerly known as VimpelCom, aspires to lead the personal internet revolution for more than 235 million customers it serves today, and many others in the years to come. Headquartered in Amsterdam, VEON’s business ties in Eurasia, Russia, Ukraine, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Italy expand ONAP’s footprint across Europe and Asia.

Windstream Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: WIN), a FORTUNE 500 company, is a leading provider of advanced network communications and technology solutions for consumers, small businesses, enterprise organizations and carrier partners across the U.S. Windstream offers bundled services, including broadband, security solutions, voice and digital TV to consumers. The company also provides data, cloud solutions, unified communications and managed services to business and enterprise clients. The company supplies core transport solutions on a local and long-haul fiber-optic network spanning approximately 147,000 miles. Additional information is available at windstream.com and https://www.windstream.com/siteselector/. The company joins a number of telecommunication service providers already supporting ONAP.

All are invited to join the ONAP Technical Steering Committee to work on this shared framework for automation of virtual network functions.

Additional Resources

About ONAP

The Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) Project brings together top global carriers and vendors with the goal of allowing end users to automate, design, orchestrate and manage services and virtual functions. ONAP unites two major open networking and orchestration projects, open source ECOMP and the Open Orchestrator Project (OPEN-O), with the mission of creating a unified architecture and implementation and supporting collaboration across the open source community. The ONAP Project is a Linux Foundation project. For more information, visit https://www.onap.org.

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