The OPNFV Project released its fifth software platform for facilitating the development and evolution of Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) components.
“With this initial integration of Kubernetes with the existing stack of open source network components, Euphrates enables NFV to make significant advances in the journey towards cloud native,” said Heather Kirksey, director, OPNFV. “Combined with a focus on XCI and modern DevOps practices, more efficient infrastructure, and enhanced operations capabilities, we’re witnessing the powerful culmination of three years’ worth of collaboration across a broad swath of open source communities, come to life.”
Key enhancements available in OPNFV Euphrates include:
- Architecture – Euphrates brings Kubernetes and container integration with multiple components of the end-to-end stack, as well as the ability to deploy containerized OpenStack via Kolla, which provides production-ready containers and deployment tools for operating OpenStack clouds. These enhancements enable easier management of the infrastructure, support of cloud-native network applications in NFV, and lighter weight control plane capabilities as service providers prepare for edge architectures to support 5G and IOT.
- Integration – access to the latest upstream code. Building on the continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipeline integration work in Danube, Euphrates introduced the implementation of the XCI integrated CI/CD pipeline amongst OPNFV, OpenStack, OpenDaylight, and FD.io. Instead of waiting for an official stable release, the OPNFV CI pipeline integrates the latest upstream code from these upstream projects in order to more quickly resolve bugs and validate features. This reduces the time it takes for feedback on a new feature or bug-fix from months to days, greatly increasing the pace of innovation. XCI also enables multi-distribution support and fosters closer developer relationships.
- New carrier-grade features – integration of the new Calipso project proved operational visibility into complex virtual networks. When combined with telemetry enhancements in existing Barometer and Doctor projects, users have access to a powerful service assurance framework. Euphrates also includes performance improvements on the Arm architecture, and in Layer 3 performance with FD.io. Euphrates also brings security and user management capabilities with Moon, continued improvement in Service Function Chaining (SFC), FD.io, and new EVPN features. Euphrates also integrates the OVN network virtualization project along with the most recent versions of other upstream projects to provide additional choice in networking control options.
- Enhanced testing and integration – includes an extensive set of tools to test the NFV cloud, VNFs, and complete network services. New projects—including Sample VNF, which provides testing of the VIM/NFVI layer with applications approximating real-life application workloads; and NFVBench, which provides an end-to-end dataplane benchmarking framework—have been introduced. Additionally, existing test projects have continued to evolve with new features, capabilities, and test cases.
