The Linux Foundation’s OPNFV Project claims 94% of telecom operators have NFV plans, although security, MANO and OSS/BSS remain top concerns
A recent survey released by the Linux Foundation’s Open Platform for NFV Project, found an increasingly small percentage of telecom operators have not yet planned for network functions virtualization.
The survey, which was conducted for OPNFV by Heavy Reading and released at the recent OPNFV Summit, noted 6% of the more than 90 telecom operators questioned did not have an NFV strategy planned at all, down from 14% last September.
In highlighting its own progress in support of deployment plans, OPNFV said 99% of respondents believe the organization will deliver on its promise of a “carrier-grade, integrated, open source reference platform intended to accelerate the introduction of new products and services,” with a focus on working with upstream projects to coordinate continuous integration and testing while filling development gaps. Nearly the same percentage (93%) of those operators also said they believe OPNFV is “essential or important to the telecom industry as a whole,” and 97% said they plan to leverage “the output of OPNFV in some way.”
Despite the optimism, operators indicated that a lack of skill set and lack of upper management support remain the biggest barriers for their involvement in OPNFV. Telecom operators noted security is the top technology OPNFV “should investigate,” which the organization said it is working through based on the formation last year of its security working group. Operating support systems and business support systems, and management and orchestration also were cited as areas of needed focus.
“It’s inspiring to see that the industry believes in the importance of what we’re doing with OPNFV,” said Heather Kirksey, OPNFV director. “Our strong community continues to grow and thrive, and while we’re still a young organization, the results of the survey indicate we’re still on the right path. It’s important we get a regular pulse on what the industry needs so we can refine our approach and focus our efforts on how best to accelerate open source NFV.”
OPNFV was founded in late 2014, with founding members including the likes of AT&T, China Mobile, Cisco, NTT DoCoMo and Vodafone. The organization earlier this year launched its second platform release dubbed Brahmaputra, which the organization said tapped code from various upstream communities,including OpenStack, OpenDaylight, OpenContrail, Open Network Lab’s Open Network Operating System project and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute.
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