Two open source MANO efforts will now be combined into the Open Network Automation Platform, under the Linux Foundation.

February 23, 2017

2 Min Read

SAN FRANCISCO – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit advancing professional open source management for mass collaboration, today announced the merger of open source ECOMP and Open Orchestrator Project (OPEN-O) to create the new Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) Project. ONAP will allow end users to automate, design, orchestrate, and manage services and virtual functions.

AT&T, China Mobile and the world’s leading operators are driving ONAP with a diverse group of founding members. Founding Platinum members include Amdocs, AT&T, Bell Canada, China Mobile, China Telecom, Cisco, Ericsson, GigaSpaces, Huawei, IBM, Intel, Nokia, Orange, Tech Mahindra, VMware and ZTE. Silver members of ONAP are BOCO Inter-Telecom, Canonical, China Unicom, Cloudbase Solutions, Metaswitch and Raisecom.

“By combining two of the largest open source networking initiatives, the community is able to take advantage of the best architectural components of both projects,” said Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of The Linux Foundation. “We’re excited to see the industry coalesce around ONAP with this unprecedented merger. Such a broad effort and investment will expedite our vision to deliver an open platform for network automation.”

Alignment of the two projects creates a harmonized and comprehensive framework for real-time, policy-driven software automation of virtual network functions that will enable software, network, IT and cloud providers and developers to rapidly create new services. By consolidating member resources, ONAP is well positioned to deliver a unified architecture and implementation, with an open standards upstream focus, faster than any one project could on its own.

The Linux Foundation will establish a governance and membership structure for ONAP to nurture a vibrant technical community. A Governing Board will guide business decisions, marketing and ensure alignment between the technical communities and members. The technical steering committee will provide leadership on the code merge and guide the technical direction of ONAP.

Many ONAP members and developers working to advance this sophisticated automation platform will be participating in the upcoming Mobile World Congress, to be held February 27-March 2 in Barcelona, and Open Networking Summit (ONS), to be held April 3-6, 2017 in Santa Clara, CA.

“AT&T is excited to be working with a larger team on the future, open source network operating system for SDN automation," said Chris Rice, senior vice president of Domain 2.0 Architecture and Design at AT&T. "Creating a combined team of the initial 10 open source ECOMP members with the existing OPEN-O members bodes well for the project’s success. I want to thank the people at CMCC and Huawei, along with Jim Zemlin and Arpit Joshipura at The Linux Foundation who worked so hard with us to make this happen. We expect more consolidation in this space, and we expect many more service providers and other technology leaders to join us in this important work, which benefits the entire industry.”

Linux Foundation

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