The OPNFV Project, an open source project set on driving the evolution of network functions virtualization (NFV) components, has made its OPNFV Colorado release available.
As the third platform release, OPNFV Colorado includes feature enhancements across security, IPv6, Service Function Chaining (SFC), testing, VPN capabilities, and support for multiple hardware architectures.
Specifically, OPNFV Colorado address three main areas: core feature upgrades, enhanced testing capabilities, and infrastructure and testing environment advancements.
Focused on improving foundational support for NFV applications and services, one of the key upgrades is SFC, which now runs across multiple nodes, includes installer support for VNF Manager (Tacker) installation and support for enhanced cloud scenarios. As more service providers move towards IPv6-only addressing, OPNFV Colorado addresses full underlay and overlay support and integration with additional install tools.
On the testing side, Colorado includes a greater integration across testing projects with additional feature testing capabilities, and increased automation. Colorado also sets a framework to create a Lab-as-a-Service program by offering increased governance, consistency, availability and quality to the Phros Test Lab project.
Colorado will also drive more cross-project collaboration via working groups focused on Management and Operation (MANO), Infrastructure, Security, and Testing. Five Committers-At-Large members have been elected to the Technical Steering Committee (TSC) to enhance the meritocratic nature of the project. OPNFV also continues to build relationships with key upstream communities such as OpenStack, OpenDaylight, ONOS, OpenContrail, FD.io, OVS, Open-O, OpenBaton, KVM, DPDK, ODP, and Linux.
OPNFV also launched its intern program during the Colorado release timeframe, already providing valuable contributions across work on the Pharos Labs, VNF on-boarding and CINDR performance testing.
Besides offering enhanced platform features and capabilities, the third OPNFV release has provided an opportunity for the community to become even more fluent in system level feature development and testing in support of NFV. As the platform continues to mature, this will be crucial in moving past the initial groundwork and into ease-of-deployment and end-user engagement.
Being able to drive more interoperable platforms and cooperation between industry groups will enable vendors and the service provider community accelerate the application of NFV into real-world networks.
A recent IHS Markit report revealed that that 100 percent of service providers said they will deploy NFV “at some point,” with 81 percent expecting to put it in their network in 2017. Additionally, 59 percent of service provider respondents said they have deployed or will deploy NFV this year.
AT&T, CenturyLink and other service providers are moving from their NFV proof-of-concept (PoC) tests and lab trials and evaluations to working with vendors that are developing and productizing the software.
For more:
- see the release
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