Windstream, a major provider of advanced network communications services, announced that it has joined the Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) Project as part of its commitment to work with peers in the open source community and to support the development of global standards for software defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualisation (NFV) technologies.
Windstream is a leader in implementing SDN technology, and as part of this effort recently launched its Software Defined Network Orchestrated Waves (SDNow) solution. Through membership of ONAP the company will be able to leverage the project's resources to promote technology standardisation and adoption in a complex, multi-vendor environment. It will also help Windstream to progressively develop its solutions for all customer segments and implement the technology to automate service ordering and installation.
- Formed through the merger of AT&T's open source ECOMP and the Open Orchestrator Project (OPEN-O) open source networking initiatives, ONAP, a Linux Foundation project, is focused on creating a comprehensive framework for real-time, policy-driven software automation of virtual network functions. The project aims to enable software, network equipment, IT and cloud providers and developers to create advanced new services.
- Windstream launched its SDNow Waves for data centre cloud applications in May. The company noted that leveraging a devops-style approach to automation development enables it to abstract the complexity of service delivery and offer a simplified view of the multi-vendor optical layer. SDNow Waves offers optical wave services based on multi-vendor service orchestration and automated provisioning across the Windstream long-haul core network and was initially available at five third-party, carrier neutral U.S. data centres.
- Previously, Windstream launched a SD-WAN solution for the reseller community following the launch in January of its SD-WAN solution based on VeloCloud technology that uses SDN to dynamically route traffic over a combination of private and public access types to multiple locations.
