CableLabs opens SNAPS-Boot and SNAPS-OpenStack
Industry consortium CableLabs recently announced two new open source projects associated with OpenStack, including SNAPS-Boot and SNAPS-OpenStack.
The purpose of SNAPS (SDN and NFV Application Platform and Stack) is to enable operators to implement software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) in HFC networks. Both technologies play an important role in the virtualization of network infrastructure. The former involves controlling network behavior through application program interfaces (APIs), or open programmatic interfaces like OpenFlow; whereas the latter involves decoupling software from hardware.
SNAPS-Boot is intended to help operators prepare their services for OpenStack, an open-source software platform for cloud computing. “With a single command, you can install Linux on your servers and prepare them for your OpenStack installation using IPMI, PXE and other standard technologies to automate the installation,” wrote Randy Levensalor, CableLabs lead architect, in a company blog post. SNAPS-OpenStack installers, on the other hand, is meant to bring up OpenStack with container-based software OpenStack Pike.
The company said it also intends to encourage interoperability for both traditional and prevailing software-based network services. Additional goals include establishing a strong open source community through a group of developers in order to attract those who need low latency at the edge of their network to cable.
“As cable networks evolve and add more capabilities, SNAPS seeks to organize and unify the industry around distributed architectures and virtualization on a stable open source platform to develop baseline OpenStack and NFV installations and configurations,” Levensalor added.
