Combination of SDN organizations to keep ONF name and be headed by ON.Lab director; merger set to be completed by end of 2017
Just over a month after losing its executive director, the Open Networking Foundation announced a merger with fellow software-defined networking organization Open Networking Lab.
The new entity is set to run under the ONF name and be headed by Guru Parulkar, ON.Lab founder and executive director. The organizations noted the legal combination is not expected until late 2017, with both entities maintaining “the integrity of both organizations and separate, but closely affiliated operations” focused on SDN and open source platforms until that time.
“Over the last few years, it has become clear that SDN standards and open source software development must come together. Open source is critical to SDN deployment,” said Parulkar. “With the combination of ONF and ON.Lab, we are shaping the future of networking by bringing standards and open source efforts under a single umbrella. This will build real synergy between the two – letting open source development and deployment guide standards development.”
Parulkar earlier this year discussed ON.Lab and the ONOS Project as part of the RCR Wireless News NFV/SDN Reality Check video show.
Rick Bauer, who was recently tapped to replace former ONF Executive Director Dan Pitt on an interim basis, is set to take over as head of standards for the organization. Pitt had been head of the organization since its founding in 2011 by a handful of technology and telecom heavyweights, including Deutsche Telekom, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Verizon and Yahoo.
The combined efforts of ON.Lab and ONF are set to include operations, membership, budget and employees. ONF counts 110 member companies, while ON.Lab states its ecosystem includes more than 70 companies and 17 partners.
Until the merger is completed, ONF is set to be governed by a board of directors composed of one delegate elected by its membership and additional delegates from AT&T, Google and NTT Communications. SK Telecom also will include a delegate to represent the Open Network Operating System project’s central office rearchitected as a data center platform – also known as CORD – and Verizon Communications will have a board seat in representation of ONOS. Other members are to include ONF co-founder Nick McKeown, current ONF board member Jennifer Rexford and Parulkar.
“We see a lot of value in combining the best of ONF and ON.Lab,” noted Andre Fuetsch, president of AT&T Labs, CTO at AT&T and ONF board member. “To continue driving adoption of SDN, we need both high-quality open source software for the necessary but nondifferentiating infrastructure as well as open standards and APIs. This will allow us to quickly create and deploy innovative new services above and to control standard hardware below. A unified organization enables software to inform new standards and help drive much faster adoption of SDN.”
ONF will maintain its headquarters in Menlo Park, California, which is already near ON.Lab.
ONF earlier this year unveiled its Atrium open solution with support for the Linux Foundation’s OpenDaylight platform. Pitt discussed the benefits of the platform and ongoing work at ONF as part of the RCR Wireless News NFV/SDN Reality Check video show.
ON.Lab late last year announced a partnership with the Linux Foundation designed to boost open source-based work targeting SDN and NFV. The partnership is said to focus on creating SDN solutions tapping open source software platforms, white boxes, network control and management applications to boost the creation and deployment of SDN platforms.
Bored? Why not follow me on Twitter
