Mind the gap: HP on reconciling gaps between carrier needs and specs

The following interview was conducted at TM Forum Live.
Jeff Edlund, CTO of HP’s Communications and Media Group, explains how his company reconciles the need to be agile in NFV and virtualization, and how standards are also necessary.
Jeff Mucci: Standards has been a big topic today, at this week’s show. How does HP reconcile the need for agility and openness, evidenced by Open Daylight, Open Stack, in the context of ETSI standards and framework standards?
Jeff Edlund of HP: Yep, so I would say Jeff that what we do is basically three motions. First motion is we try to run ahead at the standard. Second motion is we try to influence the standard, and then the third motion is we comply with the standard as it starts to emerge. So if you look at the NFV ISG at ETSI we co-chair the software architecture, ISGN have been inputting our opinion. I can tell you that they’re not as far along as we are. The same goes for MANO in ETSI management and network orchestration operations. We provide a tremendous amount of submission and content and put our view in there, and if you were to look at our MANO “product” NFV director it adheres to the “specification”, not the standard, the specification that MANO has come out with. And we also have done gap reconciliation between the carrier need and the MANO specification, and we fill those gaps with our product and then try to drive them back into ETSI. We do the exact same thing with TMF, we do the same thing with ADIS, we’re doing the same thing with OpenStack, where we’re helping OpenStack to understand where the gaps are in their product offer for the carriers. A great example in OpenStack is they have this thing called Heat, and Heat is supposed to provide this management and orchestration function for OpenStack, but Heat does not understand what the control plane is in a network. So that’s a place where we can come and we can contribute, and we can really make a difference, then deliver to our customers in OpenStack from HP that addresses that.