Open Source Optical (OSO) Forum Sets Course

A new Open Source Optical (OSO) Forum has been established to promote the adoption of standards-based, interchangeable, easy-to-use, and power-efficient optical networking technologies into next-generation data centers and cloud environments.

The new forum, which was initiated by Vello Systems and includes the initial participation of Accelink, CoAdna, CrossFiber, O-Net, PacketLight and Pacnet, aims to bring together optical component and system vendors, software companies, channel partners and end-users in order to define and promote OpenFlow-based, merchant-optical networking solutions.

Vello's mission is to provide the software that fundamentally changes IT consumption models, making them better tailored to the demands of enterprise and individual end users. Customers are calling for more flexibility and new tools to realize their IT delivery solutions. Vello's goal has been to unify standard software with vendor-agnostic merchant hardware to ease adoption by users," said Karl May, CEO, Vello Systems. "One major goal with OSO is to decouple the hardware and software innovation cycles and give vendors in both categories greater freedom to innovate. We want to extend the open networking revolution to optical systems."

The OSO Forum organizers expect that some members will simply port OSO software onto their existing optical systems, making them instantly compatible with OpenFlow controller and application frameworks. Other members may choose to build next-generation Native OpenFlow, enterprise-friendly 10G/40G/100G 1RU "pizza box" optical systems, or other appliances, as their go-to-market solutions. Moving forward, any software solution that supports OpenFlow 1.4 can also be used to run OSO-based optical solutions. Vello will also be making the optical extensions generally available to be incorporated into other OpenFlow network controller frameworks. Importantly, OSO software will include the optical extensions that are part of OpenFlow Version 1.4, which were authored and contributed by Vello in the Open Networking Foundation.

"Specific application of OpenFlow-based SDN to optical components and networks opens up novel opportunities to add connectivity options within and between data centers, improve price-performance, and apply dynamic software control to flexible, application-independent infrastructure," said Dan Pitt, executive director of the Open Networking Foundation. "We look forward to collaborating with the OSO community to understand their requirements and contribute solutions."

http://www.vellosystems.com/osocomingsoon/
http://www.opensourceoptical.org