Open source key enabler of softwarization of telecom
The Open Networking Foundation (ONF) announced it finished merging with Open Networking Lab (ON.Lab), realigning itself with the open source community. The two nonprofits, dedicated to the mass adoption of software-defined networking (SDN), unveiled they were merging together last year to create standards for open source software projects like ONOS.
Allied Market Research reports the SDN market is expected to reach $132.9 billion by 2022. The companies merged in order to map the next stage of SDN, combining each others employees and operations, including ONF’s 110 member companies alongside ON.Lab’s more than 70 companies and 17 partners.
ONF was originally created in 2011 to advance SDN deployments, a time in which the future of SDN was uncertain. The company took initiative to develop standards for OpenFlow, which was widely conflated with SDN at the time as well. ON.Lab had taken similar strides in accelerating the adoption of SDN. However, contrary to ONF, ON.Lab was designed as a software development house to foster the development of open source projects such as ONUS and CORD.
“CORD, unlike many other projects that only address parts of the puzzle, offers a holistically-designed, fully-integrated, end-to-end solution ready for deployment,” said Roz Roseboro, senior analyst of data center infrastructure and MANO for Heavy Reading. “It’s a way for service providers to prove that this whole new architecture and process can work. Heavy Reading forecasts that the majority of communications service providers (CSPs) will use CORD by 2020 to at least some degree, and nearly 40% of all end-customers (residential, wireless and enterprise, collectively) will have service provided by COs or their equivalents using CORD by mid-2021. We expect CORD will enable service providers to more effectively compete with web-scale operators while speeding network automation and innovation.”
In addition to ONUS and CORD, the companies intend to work with other open source projects, including OpenDaylight and the Open Platform for Network Functions Virtualization (OPNFV). ONF and ON.Lab intend to determine future open source standards based upon a general consensus within the open source community.
The companies said no changes to current membership fees will be made following the merger. Although, the organizations said they are updating the membership model to support its diverse and widespread member base in wake of the acquisition.
“We are at the forefront of a massive transformation of the networking ecosystem,” said Guru Parulkar, executive director of ONF. “Recognizing that open source is transforming our industry at an unprecedented pace, we set out to optimize the ONF to embrace and further drive this revolution. We’re very pleased to have now completed our metamorphosis. We are also humbled by the success and impact our projects are having worldwide, and excited to embrace the work ahead.”
