ETSI Open Source MANO initiative swells to 60 organizations with arrival of Verizon, Atos and CableLabs as new members.
Verizon Communications is one of the latest telecommunication operators to join the European Telecommunications Standards Institute’s Open Source MANO project, which is focused on open source-based management and orchestration initiatives. Atos and CableLabs also joined the ETSI program.
The group now claims 60 organizations have joined its ranks, which was formally launched last February. Initial members included BT, Canonical, Intel, Mirantis, RIFT.io, Telefónica, Telekom Austria Group and Telenor, with a focus placed on using open source software for MANO of network functions virtualization in connection with its NFV industry specification group.
Verizon is the eighth telecom operator to join the project along with fellow members Bell Mobility, BT, Portugal Telecom, SK Telecom, Sprint, Telefónica and Telenor. ETSI said the OSM initiative is closely aligned with the evolution of its NFV programs and plans to provide a regularly updated reference implementation of NFV MANO.
“OSM aims at enabling an ecosystem of NFV solution vendors to rapidly and cost-effectively deliver solutions to their users,” ETSI explained. “ETSI OSM complements the work of ETSI NFV and vice versa. The approach of having an open source project closely aligned with a specification group maximizes innovation, efficiency and time to market and ensures a continuing series of true (conformant) reference implementations.”
OSM released its first platform last October, which it claimed was “engineered, tested and documented to allow for rapid installation in operator labs worldwide that seek to create a scalable and interoperable open source MANO environment.” Release One moved on enhancing interoperability with virtual network functions and software-defined networking controllers, and was said to create a plugin framework designed to ease platform maintenance and extensions.
Specific technical highlights include native support for VMware, OpenStack and OpenVIM; support for reference SDN controllers, including OpenDaylight and FloodLight; a plugin model to facilitate the addition of new types of Virtualized Infrastructure Managers and SDN controllers; multisite network services allowing deployments across multiple data centers; simplified installer based on containers and Juju modeling; extended VNF and network service models allowing “day-zero” VNF configuration; and OpenVIM code to provide a reference VIM with support for enhanced platform awareness.
Verizon is part of several open source projects, including The Linux Foundation’s central office re-architected as a data center platform.
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