AT&T, China Unicom, Comcast, Google, Deutsche Telekom, NTT Group, Telefonica, and Turk Telekom have agreed to back a new strategic plan for the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) focused on developing reference designs for open source, next-generation SDN solutions.
The operators will work together inside the ONF to create Reference Designs (RDs) to serve as “gold standards” for combining component projects into common platforms upon which operators will build solutions. Each RD will be championed by a select group of operators, and will be designed with participation by invited supply chain partners sharing the vision and demonstrating active investment in building open source solutions.
The work activity will span all network layers, including mobile infrastructure, the edge cloud, multiaccess edge, and optical transport. The ONF has assembled partnerships with OEMs, systems integrators, VNF vendors, platform software developers, next-gen ODMs and chip companies.
The ONF, which was founded in 2011 and is based in Menlo Park, California, has been behind leading open source projects such as ONOS, Trellis and CORD. These projects have gained significant traction with operators as eighteen tier-1 operators are actively testing and trialling these solution. At least two tier-1 operators are moving into production with projects in 2018.
“The ONF is pleased to share our new 2018 strategic plan for market transformation,” said Andre Fuetsch, President and Chair of the ONF Board, and Chief Technology Officer and President, AT&T Labs. “This plan will position ONF as a premier, operator-driven community and will better align and accelerate open systems solutions to the marketplace. The plan is highlighted by two major components: 1) operators and ONF will work together to create common modular reference designs using components such as white boxes and open source platforms, and 2) operators and ONF will work on driving the components of the reference designs to be production-ready, and in selected areas will create integrated implementations of the designs.”
“Operators’ commitment to take open source solutions into production represents the next big step in realizing the full potential of software-defined, disaggregation and open source. It is also heartening to see operators’ determination to enable a new supply-chain that is well aligned with their goals. Clearly this is a landmark moment and it will set our industry on a new course for years to come. I am delighted that operators consider the ONF their partner in pursuit of this important agenda,” said Guru Parulkar, Executive Director for the ONF.
