OPNFV End User Advisory Group targets NFV guidance, includes wide range of members, including AT&T, China Mobile, DT, Sprint and Vodafone
The Linux Foundation’s Open Platform for NFV Project recently formed its End User Advisory Group tasked with providing technical guidance to the OPNFV developer community working to bring network functions virtualization platforms to the telecom space.
The advisory group is made up of end-user organizations from OPNFV members and nonmembers. Representation comes from AT&T, British Telecom, CableLabs, China Mobile, China Unicom, Cox Communications, Deutsche Telekom, Fidelity Investments, Liberty Global, KDDI, Orange, SK Telecom, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telia Company and Vodafone Group.
AT&T’s Steven Wright, who is lead member of the technical staff at AT&T, is chair of the group, serving a two-year term.
Those members are set to provide guidance to OPNFV governing bodies, which include its Technical Steering Committee, Boards of Directors and Certification and Compliance Committee. The EUAG is scheduled to meet monthly, with the first meeting having taken place on June 26, with the next scheduled for Aug. 31. OPNFV said the meetings entail discussions on key challenges, standards, network architecture and emerging use cases related to NFV.
“The formation of the OPNFV EUAG will harness the knowledge and expertise of those responsible for actually running real-world networks as they deploy and scale,” said OPNFV Director Heather Kirksey. “Feedback from the ecosystem using and deploying NFV is crucial to the future direction of OPNFV. Engaging these pioneers will help us address the most pressing pain points for the industry and build a platform with broad applicability.”
RCR Wireless News recently spoke with Kirksey as part of the NFV/SDN Reality Check video show to get an update on its work in the open-source NFV market and trends coming out of its OPNFV World event.
OPNFV recently released a survey showing that an increasingly small percentage of telecom operators have not yet planned for NFV. The survey, which was conducted for OPNFV by Heavy Reading and released at the 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.
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