News

VMware Joins OPEN-O Project for NFV Orchestration

• By David Ramel
• 01/09/2017

VMware Inc. has joined the OPEN-O Project (Open Orchestrator Project), recently formed to enable network operators to deliver end-to-end services across network functions virtualization (NFV) infrastructure, software-defined networks (SDNs) and legacy network services.

Announced last November, the open source project was characterized an initiative to bridge the gap between NFV and SDN technologies. According to documentation, its primary goal is the establishment of an open framework that can be used to orchestrate end-to-end composite services across existing networks, in addition to emerging SDN and NFV infrastructure.

Hosted by The Linux Foundation, the project originated from several Chinese telecommunications companies. By joining the effort, VMware will work with other members such as China Mobile, China Telecom, Hong Kong Telecom (HKT), Ericsson, GigaSpaces, Huawei, Intel Corp., ZTE, Canonical Ltd., Cloudbase Solutions SRL, Infoblox, Raisecom and Red Hat Inc.

VMware said it's joining the group to help advance industry adoption of open standards-based orchestration for NFV.

"Implementing NFV requires a robust NFV infrastructure, and the agility provided by the type of comprehensive NFV and multi-cloud orchestration the OPEN-O Project promises to deliver," said exec Gabriele Di Piazza. "Customers will ultimately choose the path that best helps them meet their digital transformation objectives, and by joining OPEN-O, VMware is extending its position as a major player in defining the evolution and adoption of NFV by telcos and communication services providers."

The OPEN-O Project said its benefits include:

• Enabling operators to capitalize on NFV and SDN architecture.
• Allowing for multi-domain, multi-location and end-to-end service composition.
• Adoption of industry-wide common information model and TOSCA/YANG (RFC 6020) data models to ensure extensibility, implementation efficiency and interoperability.
• Providing a common platform for VNF vendors, simplifying and accelerating VNF onboarding, development and deployment.
• Enhancing the overall service lifecycle, through model-driven automation to enable reuse and incremental upgrades.
• Providing abstraction to operate over diverse SDN, NFV and legacy networks.

"The OPEN-O Project is representative of the industry movement toward adoption and production deployment of open standards-based orchestration to enable operators to capitalize on NFV and SDN architecture," said project exec Marc Cohn. "Operators participating in OPEN-O feature a subscriber base in excess of a billion mobile, residential and business users. With the addition of leading NFV vendors such as VMware, we believe OPEN-O will successfully deliver the abstraction needed to deliver complex services over SDN and NFV infrastructures, as well as legacy networks."