LF Networking Accelerates 5G, Cloud Native, and Edge Readiness with Expanded Projects and Growing Community Ecosystem

• China Mobile brings XGVela to the Linux Foundation, focusing on open telco PaaS platform for 5G network functions and related applications

• Accelerating LFN collaboration across open source projects within CNCF, LF Edge, LF AI, Hyperledger, ORAN-SC to enhance 5G, Cloud Native, and Edge as ecosystem moves to deployment

• Growing developer participation in critical projects through virtual technical conferences, new Training courses, and expanded Mentorship programs 

SAN FRANCISCO– April 30, 2020 – LF Networking (LFN), which facilitates collaboration and operational excellence across open source networking projects, today announced continued successes with cross-industry, global collaboration. Progress includes the Linux Foundation induction of new project, XGVela, an open source telco Platform as a Service (PaaS) for 5G network functions and related applications; new LFN silver member everis; expanded mentorship and training opportunities; and a new verified product by the OPNFV Verification Program (OVP). Together, these efforts bring additional support for future automation and deployment of 5G, edge, and cloud native networking technologies. 

“In a new normal, networking serves as the critical foundation for everything we do. That said, we are pleased to see strong growth in developer participation of our projects, including training with close to 30,000 enrollees to date, and a recent virtual developer event with over two-times the registration of past physical events,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, Edge and IOT, the Linux Foundation. “We’re expanding our global footprint that enables open source networking and related technologies to grow and thrive. Other examples include the addition of XGVela as a Linux Foundation project aimed to accelerate telco cloud adoption, new silver member everis, and new training and mentorship opportunities.” 

Donated by LFN member China Mobile, XGVela provides a PaaS platform to accelerate the design, development and innovation of telco-related services. The project refines common capabilities of upper layer services as PaaS functions on platform layer. The platform brings General PaaS functions from existing open source PaaS component projects (e.g.  Grafana, Envoy, Zookeeper, etc.) to be enhanced with telco requirements, and Telco PaaS which has strong telecommunication characteristics and is under exploration. 

Currently, XGVela has gathered partners including China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom, ZTE, Ericsson, Nokia, H3C, CICT and Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications, and received high attention from Intel, and Red Hat. XGVela hopes to expand the telco cloud native ecosystem and enable more cloud deployments among telcos.

“Exploring the future direction of network transformation has always been one of China Mobile’s core missions,” said Xiaodong Duan, director of network and IT department, China Mobile Research Institute. “ With the deployment of 5G, applications of containers and microservice technologies, we believe operator networks will eventually evolve into a cloud native network. Hence China Mobile is pleased to launch a new project within the  Linux Foundation – XGVela, a 5G cloud native PaaS. We hope XGVela will gather the most intelligent technicians from operators, vendors and IT companies to help accelerate operators’ cloud native transformation and promote vertical industrial prosperity.”

Welcome everis

LFN welcomes its newest Silver member, everis, an NTT DATA company dedicated to  consulting and outsourcing in all sectors. Everis joins recently-announced Silver members A10 Networks, AMD, Codilime, Mirantis, Robin.io, Solutions by STC, ULAK, and Xilinx. These organizations work alongside the plethora of existing member organizations to drive development, testing and implementation of LFN’s existing networking projects, including FD.io, ONAP, OPNFV, OpenDaylight, OpenSwitch, PNDA, SNAS, and Tungsten Fabric.

“We are really excited to join LFN. everis, as a networking system integrator, finds in LFN a key lever to unleash industry Data Openness, Network Process Automation and 5G future networks,” said Hugo Alberto Nava, Telecom Director at everis. “This area is so important for us that we have designed a new area, #everisOpenNetworks, in charge of uniquely integrated networks and systems, helping CSPs achieve more efficient and low-cost operations. Our vision in relation to the future of OSS is directly connected with a disaggregated, open, cloud-based and data-driven architecture with the main purpose of enabling value through close loop automation inside the most important network processes. We believe the Linux Foundation Networking is essential to go deep into this approach, helping us to make a difference by sharing knowledge and taking our proposal into a superior level.” 

About everis

everis is a consulting and outsourcing company that covers all sectors of the economy, with a turnover of nearly 1.437 million euros in the last fiscal year, made up of 27,000 professionals distributed throughout Europe, the USA and Latin America. everis is firmly committed to talent and innovation and its main objective is to attract the best professionals and help them develop their careers in the company https://www.everis.com/

Mentorship & Training

LFN is kicking off an expanded mentorship program with 9 active projects; opportunities for students (mentees) include building a portal for ONAP Automation Testing; Hardware Delivery Verification Tool; ONAP Security Requirements; Conformance Testing for ETSI NFV APIs; and more. More details on the LFN Mentorship program are available here. 

Additionally, the Linux Foundation offers a robust package of networking training courses. Given the current global situation, the Linux Foundation is making it easier to use this time to brush up on open source skills, or gain new ones. All certification exams, and nearly all  training courses, are available remotely, making them a good option for those home during this time. 

Included is the entire catalog of open networking training courses, covering everything from DevOps for Network Engineers to courses on ONAP, OPNFV and more. An ONAP certification exam will be launching in the coming months, so this is a great chance to get prepared. The LF also offers dozens of completely free training courses. Edge training courses will be available in May. 

OVP Badging

The OPFV Verification Program (OVP), which has verified 12 products with the NFVI “Infrastructure” badge, is pleased to announce its first product to be verified with the “VNF” Badge – Çınar, a 5G Core VNF from LFN member Ulak Communications. The team from Ulak participated in the LFN Developer & Testing Forum in Prague and the VNF Hacking Track designed to help VNF vendors jumpstart their VNF testing efforts. 

New LFN Assets

A new whitepaper, prepared by a Working Group of the LFN Technical Advisory Council (TAC), has been published that illustrates the state-of-the-art in networking technology and provides an overview for how the LF Networking (LFN) projects may be used as building blocks for modern networks. An introductory guide for the edge is also now available that gives an overview of the edge compute market opportunity, where open source fits in, the role of Linux Foundation projects in your edge strategy, and how to get involved. 

Looking Ahead

2020 will continue to be a productive year for LFN. The community will host a virtual developer event June 1-4 (details to come) for developers to collaborate and engage across LFN communities, including ONAP, OPNFV, CNTT, and more. 

The Open Networking & Edge Summit (ONES),  the industry’s premier open networking event now expanded to comprehensively cover Edge Computing, Edge Cloud & IoT will take place in Los Angeles September 28-29. ONES enables collaborative development and innovation across enterprises, service providers/telcos and cloud providers to shape the future of networking and edge computing. Register today for Early Bird pricing: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-networking-edge-summit-north-america/register/

ONAP will soon issue its sixth platform release, ONAP Frankfurt, which enhances support for cloud native with deeper Kubernetes integration and for 5G through network slicing and an initial O-RAN integration. Frankfurt will also include security improvements and begin the shift to Python 3 and Java 11.  

More LFN content is on the way with an LFN End User Advisory Group (EUAG) whitepaper on ONAP consumption, a CNTT whitepaper, and introductory guides for cloud native and 5G.

Support for XGVela

“Cloud Native has reached broad consensus as the target architecture of telecom networks,” said Xiongyan Tang, chief scientist of China Unicom Network Technology Research Institute and the Chief Architect of China Unicom Intelligent Network Center, China Unicom. “China Unicom believes that the telecom cloud native architecture is a key path towards agile operations, and would provide a great foundation for the digital transformation of operators. XGVela is committed to work together towards a telecom PaaS functions platform for 5G and Cloud-oriented services，which will play an important role in the cloud native evolution of  thetelecom industry. China Unicom is pleased to join XGVela project, and will work together with community partners to nurture a vibrant technical community.”

“In the 5G era, services innovation needs a fast-paced, continuous change of technology to promote network transformation,” said Yongbing Fan, vice director of Network Evolution Department, China Telecom Research Institute. “The integration of CT and IT technology, network and cloud-native are currently recognized to be telco-industry trends. China Telecom attaches great importance to the combination of network and services, and is committed to accelerating its cloudification. The cloud-native telecom PaaS platform, XGVela, perfectly meets the needs of the 5G era. China Telecom is pleased to join this project and work with community partners to cultivate a dynamic technical community.”

“Cloud native paradigm and design principles are key to Ericsson, being the first 5G provider to include cloud native container-based technologies as part of its 5G Core offering,” said Anders Rpsengren, head of Architecture & Technology, Business Area Digital Services, Ericsson. “Ericsson is one of the leading promoters and supporters of the open source ecosystem, accelerating the adoption and industry alignment in a number of key technology areas. As a leading vendor of cloud native telco applications we see significant value in both standardization and open source projects in the cloud native area including CNCF, CNTT and now XGVela, that help push the boundaries of tomorrow’s networks in terms of agility, efficiency and reliability.”

“Network transition has become a consensus among global operators. NFV, SDN and 5G have accelerated the progress of telecommunication network and cloud computing combination,” said Chen Fang, technical director, H3C Carrier Departemnet. “XGVela will further promote the introduction of cloud-native concepts into telecommunications networks. By constructing a carrier-grade PaaS platform and restructuring the organization of 5G network elements, it will promote the full opening of 5G network capabilities and support the network transition and success of 5G networks. H3C is committed to promoting the digital transition of society and is willing to work with China Mobile to promote the maturity and industrialization of XGVela.”

“The telecommunications industry is in the middle of two key transitions that will shape the world to come – the deployment of 5G and the transition to cloud native,” said Jonne Soininen, head of Open Source Initiatives, Nokia  “The industry needs to work closely together in order to succeed in this transition. Nokia is strongly committed to contribute to achieve this goal. We welcome the leadership from CMCC in proposing the XGVela project. Nokia is looking forward to working closely with CMCC and the rest of the industry to make sure the transition to cloud native in telecommunications is successful.”

“ZTE is honored to participate in the XGVela project as a major telecommunications equipment manufacturer. We believe that XGVela attempts to use containerization technology and reasonably divide the telecommunications capabilities and general capabilities in PaaS, which will help the flexible deployment of network elements and the rapid scheduling of resources in 5G networks,” said Wang Weibin, CTO of ZTE Telecom Cloud & CN Product Operation. “ZTE hopes to contribute our experience accumulated in the long-term research and development of telecommunications core networks in this project. We sincerely hope that industry peers will work closely together in this new open source project to enrich the ecosystem, create extraordinary value, and achieve complete success!”

About the Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

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