Vast majority of OpenDaylight members targeting SDN, see NFV and cloud as top use cases
The Linux Foundation’s OpenDaylight program has been actively supporting the growing adoption of virtualized network technologies across the telecom space, with a recent survey by the organization showing strong uptake of software-defined networking, network functions virtualization and cloud platform.
The survey of OpenDaylight members included 31% that claimed to be telecom or service providers, 24% indicating they were research or academic institutions, 20% enterprises, and the remainder split between services/consulting organizations, vendors and “other.”
The results showed 73% of OpenDaylight members had already deployed or plan to deploy a SDN release from the organization within the next year, with 24% said to be in the “investigation” stage. NFV and cloud were cited as top deployment use cases for OpenDaylight, with NFV at 72%; cloud orchestration using OpenStack at 54%; fulfillment, traffic engineering and quality of service at 47%; and network monitoring and analytics at 41%.
“Many of the respondents who indicated NFV as their primary use case were in the enterprise or academia/research space underscoring the fact that NFV has a range of implementations that are appealing outside the telco space,” OpenDaylight noted. “We’re interested in further exploring this point with our respondents in subsequent market activities and will be sure to share what we learn.”
As for business drivers behind the deployment of OpenDaylight-based platforms, those surveyed cited increased interoperability and portability of software systems; increased operational efficiency; and greater ability to innovate and compete.
The survey also looked at what OpenDaylight could improve upon, with a majority stating documentation.
“This is relatively common for a nascent open-source project and an area that the community is attuned to and putting renewed focus on,” OpenDaylight explained. “As a project we’re helping where we can, creating training and providing a website with new and curated materials. We hope over the next couple releases you’ll see great progress from us in this area.”
RCR Wireless News recently spoke with Neela Jacques, executive director of the OpenDaylight Project, as part of its weekly NFV/SDN Reality Check show on the continued evolution of NFV and SDN, and the impact open-source collaborations have had on that evolution.
New members
OpenDaylight this week also announced AT&T, ClearPath Networks and Nokia Networks have joined the project.
AT&T has been using OpenDaylight since its first release and continues to incorporate the platform into production for its Network on Demand services. AT&T is said to be submitting its customized YANG Design Studio Tool into open source through the OpenDaylight community to allow developers to create services that fit into AT&T’s software-defined framework and any Yang-driven implementation.
RCR Wireless News recently spoke with Chris Rice, VP at AT&T Labs, on the importance of software for the evolution of telecom networks and the need for open source platforms.
OpenDaylight late last month unveiled its third open SDN software release dubbed Lithium, which the organization said is tailored toward those looking for production-ready products and leveraging Open Platform for NFV. Lithium is said to provide increased scalability and performance; network services for cloud data center platforms; new features for security and automation; enhanced APIs designed for greater interoperability; and six new protocols to support more use cases.
Lithium follows up on the previously released Hydrogen and Helium software releases.
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