Vendors join hands to foster open source NFV

The Linux Foundation has added another string to its virtualisation bow, with the launch of OPNFV, its project for an open-source network function virtualisation (NFV) platform.

The project, here, comes with the obligatory roster of high-profile vendors backing it: AT&T, Brocade, Cisco, China Mobile, Huawei, IBM, Juniper and many others among them.

The aim is to create a reference architecture for “carrier-grade” NFV, the abstraction of opreations that usually reside on custom or merchant silicon into software objects built to run on VMs on standard usually Intel-based servers.

Rather than developing its own standards, OPNFV will be working with the ETSI group that's formulating NFV standards.

As the group explains in its launch announcement: “Service provider applications have different demands than most IT applications, so an open platform integrating multiple open source components and ensuring continuous testing for carrier-grade service performance is essential to this transition.”

The project says it will draw from existing NVF building blocks that exist, pulling them into a framework under which it'll “coordinate continuous integration and testing”. Its own code efforts will focus on filling gaps in the architecture rather than re-creating functions that already exist.

New components will ship under the Apache License Version 2.0.

Board officers include Verizon and HP veteran Prodip Sen as chair, AT&T's Margaret Chiosi, Dell's Wenjing Chu, and China Mobile's Hui Deng. ®