The Open Networking Foundation (ONF) announced a major update to its ONF Certified SDN Associate (OCSA) program, which is designed to familiarize and certify engineers with the key components of disaggregated SDN networks, from white box switching to network operating systems, northbound and southbound interfaces, P4 and next-gen SDN interfaces, open source platforms, etc.
ONF collaborates with a group of authorized training providers to offer skills training and testing with online and in-person options available worldwide. To support those studying for the new OCSA-2.0 exam, ONF is also making new free resources available, in particular Larry Peterson’s new book: SDN, a systems approach. The book is organized around the new SDN stack, with the goal of presenting a top-to-bottom tour of SDN without leaving any significant gaps that the reader might suspect can only be filled with magic or proprietary code. Readers can complete hands-on programming exercises included at the end of the book to prove that the software stack is both accessible, robust and complete.
In addition, the ONF launched its new ONF Marketplace featuring products that have completed testing and achieved certification as part of ONF’s Continuous Certification Program. ONF’s open source platforms that are currently part of this program include Aether, Stratum, SEBA and VOLTHA.
