Monday, July 28, 2014

The OpenCloud Project Aims for Programatic Interoperability

The OpenCloud Project, which is sponsored by the CloudEthernet Forum, is on-track to launch a test bed later this year for end-to-end interoperability for cloud, datacenter and network services.

Comcast, Verizon and Tata are hosting the first meeting of the OpenCloud Project this week in Silicon Valley. Specifically, the aim of the project is to solve the following problems:

  • Lack of end-to-end SLAs 
  • Provisioning of network services 
  • Policy for compliance, regulation and privacy laws 
  • Single view for managing services 
  • Standardized communication between cloud services

The OpenCloud Project has now put together a reference architecture that will be the basis of its forthcoming testbed.

“Where other standards bodies had the space to shape standards in advance of market penetration, cloud computing is already surging ahead in every direction -- powered by NFV, SDN, virtualization technologies and networking – technologies that are themselves still evolving quickly. Our response is to iteratively develop the Reference Architecture, the Test Bed and the standards simultaneously to keep ahead of business needs. The aim is to evolve a fully interworking cloud environment and the advance best practices to manage OTT and cloud services,” stated James Walker, president of the Cloud Ethernet Forum.

Jeff Schmitz, CEF Chairman, commented, “The OpenCloud Project is now in the design stage. We are putting a range of use cases to the test, starting with remote relocation and multiplication of virtual machines across the cloud.  The published results will reveal what does and does not work and will invite participation in addressing these challenges. Those who commit to the project now will help shape tomorrow and the $200Bn cloud services market.

Members of the Cloud Ethernet Forum include: Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Comcast, Ciena, Cisco, Citrix, CoreSite, Ericsson, Equinix, Juniper, HP, Huawei, Interexion, PCCW Global, Spirent Communications, Tata Communications, Telx, Verizon and others.

http://www.cloudethernet.org/
http://www.cloudethernet.org/about-cef/cef-overview/opencloudproject/