The OPNFV Project, which is the community based effort sponsored by the Linux Foundation to develop an open source platform to accelerate the introduction of Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), announced its OPNFV Brahmaputra release.
Key enhancements in OPNFV Brahmaputra include:
Hardened feature enhancements.
- Layer 3 VPN instantiation and configuration
- Initial support for IPv6 deployment and testing in IPv6 environments,
- Improved fault detection and recovery capabilities via work in OpenStack Neutron and Ceilometer as well as collaborative development work with DPDK
- Initial Service Function Chaining capabilities via OpenDaylight Beryllium
- Basic resource reservation via a shim layer on top of OpenStack
- Enhancements in performance and throughput via data plane acceleration and NFV-focused enhancements in OVS and KVM
Enhanced testing capabilities.
- Extending the suite of functional tests developed in Arno, Brahmaputra adds system-level testing and multiple performance testing frameworks and methodologies. The Yardstick Project implements system-level validation with baseline testing requirements as outlined in the ETSI TST 001 spec. Additional improvements include detailed vSwitch performance characterization, bottoms-up system performance benchmarking, and the implementation of a performance bottleneck-focused testing framework.
Infrastructure and testing environment advancements.
- In addition to the bare metal lab hosted by the Linux Foundation, community Pharos labs were used to release validation for Brahmaputra. Additionally, OPNFV’s Jenkins-based continuous integration and continuous deployment toolchain has made great strides in automating all integration and deployment scenarios and associated testing frameworks.
Deployment and integration enhancements.
- Brahmaputra contains an increased number of components and scenarios, including support for additional SDN controllers and installers, such as OpenStack Liberty and OpenDaylight Beryllium, which can be used to build the platform.
“Building on the foundation of Arno, the OPNFV community worked tirelessly to integrate and combine components from multiple communities to deliver Brahmaputra, which brings end-to-end feature realization,” said Chris Price, technical steering committee chair, OPNFV and Open Source Manager for SDN, Cloud & NFV, Ericsson. “The impact is substantial; we’ve now established methodologies and mechanisms for further cross-project and feature development.”
“The strength of any open source project depends on the community developing it,” said Heather Kirksey, director, OPNFV. “With an entire industry involved in the development of NFV, we’re seeing more collaboration among key stakeholders across the ecosystem. The strides we made in Brahmaputra create a framework for even more developers to come together and make progress in the journey to NFV.”