The OpenDaylight Project, delivering an open source platform for programmable, software-defined networks, has announced its sixth release, Carbon, featuring enhancements designed to better support metro Ethernet and cable operators, as well as Internet of Things (IoT) deployments.
OpenDaylight's latest release advances the platform's scalability and robustness with new capabilities to support multi-site deployments for geographic reach, application performance and fault tolerance. Southbound protocols OpenFlow and Netconf have been made more scalable and offer new features and administrative utilities have been enhanced.
Further new capabilities offered with the Carbon release include:
1. Streamlined service function chaining via an integrated framework for NFV management, with integration work and new capabilities recently showcased as part of the proposed Nirvana Stack.*
2. Support for a series of PCMM specifications and other capabilities required by cable operators, plus improvements that allow software applications and service orchestrators to configure and provision connectivity services in physical and virtual network elements, in particular Carrier Ethernet services as defined by MEF.
It was noted that the enhanced toolchains for OpenDaylight are being incorporated as core components of higher-level open source frameworks including ONAP, OPNFV and OpenStack, as well as in real-world implementations of designs from standards bodies such as the MEF. In addition, such combined stacks are being used by developers to explore new use cases, such as IoT.
The OpenDaylight project cited comments on the new Carbon release from companies including CenturyLink, China Mobile, Inocybe Technologies and Tencent.
CenturyLink noted that as it works to virtualise its network, SDN controllers provide key functionality, while diverse requirements in the network, data centres and central offices require flexibility from OpenDaylight and applications such as the Edge Access Controller.
Regarding OpenDaylight, Adam Dunstan, VP of SDN/NFV engineering at CenturyLink, commented, ".,.to achieve full network virtualisation, CenturyLink has created its own virtualised Broadband Network Gateway (vBNG) using open source components including OpenDaylight and OpenStack… it used OpenDaylight software to build the SDN access controller because of its flexibility to work with legacy operations support systems as well as newer orchestration platforms".
* Nirvana Stack is a generic NFV solution stack proposed by AT&T in 2016 which consists of four key components: OpenStack, OpenDaylight, FD.io/VPP. These components are integrated into a solution stack in OPNFV and designed to enable rapid development, composable architectures, and flexible solution design.
