While some telcos appear eager to get started with ONAP, others are worried about the unwieldiness of the platform.

Iain Morris, International Editor

November 6, 2017

8 Min Read
ONAP Takes Flak as Telcos Prep for Release 1

Some of the world's biggest telecom operators are preparing for the first release of ONAP later this month amid growing doubts about the usability of the code that will feature in the open source platform.

ONAP, which stands for Open Network Automation Platform, is one of several open source initiatives that have taken root in the industry as operators try to overcome the interoperability challenges posed by new software and virtualization technologies.

Backed heavily by US telco giant AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), ONAP is broadly intended to simplify the management and orchestration of network functions and services, giving operators more control over the virtualized networks they are building.

Figure 1: Top Dog AT&T, whose Dallas headquarters are pictured above, is seen as the dominant force in ONAP. AT&T, whose Dallas headquarters are pictured above, is seen as the dominant force in ONAP.

The initiative took shape earlier this year when ECOMP and OPEN-O, two separate open source projects, merged under the supervision of the Linux Foundation open source group, which had previously hosted both of them. It has now drawn support from a number of the world's biggest telecom operators and vendors. (See MANO Marriage: ECOMP, OPEN-O Converge as ONAP and Big Names Board the ONAP Express.)

Yet ONAP is not universally popular. It faces competition from a rival initiative called Open Source MANO (OSM), which the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) supports. And while AT&T is regarded as the driving force behind ONAP, OSM has a similarly high-profile telco sponsor in the form of Spain's Telefónica. (See NFV's Major Movements.)

ONAP's critics, moreover, say the first iteration of the software platform -- due for release on November 16 -- will not be usable in production networks. A source with knowledge of the project reckons ONAP will lack the stability it needs for use in production networks until the third or fourth release. He would not advise operators to deploy the first release, codenamed Amsterdam.

That release will focus on providing support for three network functions or services -- a virtual firewall (vFW), virtual customer premises equipment (vCPE) and a voice-over-LTE service running on a virtual evolved packet core (vEPC).

Arash Ashouriha, the deputy chief technology officer of Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT), which is not an ONAP member, has also cast aspersions on the initiative. "A big proportion of the industry has converged toward ONAP but there is still a long way to go because the full industry is not part of it and the first release is not fully usable," said Ashouriha during a keynote presentation at the SDN NFV World Congress in October. (See DT: Brutal Automation Is Only Way to Succeed.)

Such teething troubles are nothing unusual in the world of software. Open source projects usually take some time to mature and become sufficiently refined. And as a full service management platform, ONAP is possibly the most ambitious open source project that telcos have ever had to confront.

But despite the warnings about ONAP's immaturity, BCE Inc. (Bell Canada) (NYSE/Toronto: BCE) is one example of a major service provider now gearing up for the Amsterdam version. "As a member of ONAP, we look forward to working with our international partners to begin the implementation of Version 1 later this year," said a spokesperson for the North American telco in comments emailed to Light Reading. "We also look forward to the integration of the ONAP Operations Manager expected in the spring."

That Operations Manager should support the deployment, management and operation of the ONAP platform and its component parts. It could feature in Release 2, codenamed Beijing and set to appear on May 24 next year.

For more NFV-related coverage and insights, check out our dedicated NFV content channel here on Light Reading.

Light Reading approached other telcos that have joined ONAP for comment on their plans. Those operators include China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, California's Equinix, Hong Kong's PCCW, India's Reliance Jio, France's Orange, UK-based Vodafone and emerging markets player VEON.

Both Orange (NYSE: FTE) and Equinix Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX) struck a warier tone than Bell Canada when discussing ONAP Release 1.

In emailed remarks, a spokesperson for Orange told Light Reading that: "Orange is following the integration phase and we will be active in the evaluation of the first release in our ONAP Open Lab."

Equinix, which provides colocation services, said: "While we have no immediate plans to use the upcoming first release in production, our initial goals are to understand how the solution works at the technical level in a lab environment, so we could determine if there are any applications of ONAP for NFV [network functions virtualization] services provided by Equinix, and to contribute to the future releases of ONAP by working with the community members on submitting detailed use case specifications for development."

Vodafone Group plc (NYSE: VOD) declined to say anything about the Amsterdam release before seeing the official announcement from ONAP. Other telcos did not return comments.

Next page: ONAP's bad rap

ONAP's bad rap
While ONAP has quickly gathered momentum from a membership perspective, skepticism about the initiative is now rife.

One overarching concern is that a software tool with several million lines of code will prove cumbersome for the operators using it. "The complexity of ONAP is the antithesis of open source development," said James Crawshaw, a senior analyst with the Heavy Reading market research group, during Light Reading's "OSS in the Era of SDN and NFV" event in London earlier this week.

ONAP is today thought to comprise more than 10 million lines of seed code, covering about 30 distinct software projects from multiple vendors. Its complexity stems partly from its origins as a merger between ECOMP, which started out as an internal AT&T project, and OPEN-O, whose founders included China Mobile Ltd. (NYSE: CHL) and China Telecom Corp. Ltd. (NYSE: CHA), two of Asia's biggest telcos. While much of the code was previously released, any notion that ONAP will function smoothly from the outset seems unrealistic.

"There was a big question mark over these millions of lines of code in terms of everything that is needed to maintain the software," says an executive from a Tier 1 service provider in explaining why his company is not a member of ONAP.

Others seem worried that ONAP is controlled by a handful of very big players that are using it to advance their own software agendas. Heavy Reading's Crawshaw alludes to this when noting that AT&T, Amdocs Ltd. (NYSE: DOX), Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. and ZTE Corp. (Shenzhen: 000063; Hong Kong: 0763) are the dominant players in the group, even though it now lists about 50 companies as members on its website.

"The only [influential] operator apart from AT&T is China Mobile," he says. "I don't see lots of operator participation in that project and that suggests it is not really an open source initiative."

The Tier 1 telco executive who spoke with Light Reading also thinks only AT&T and China Mobile are contributing developers to ONAP, and that other big telcos like Orange and Vodafone are not involved in that way.

Want to know more about the emerging SDN market? Check out our dedicated SDN content channel here on Light Reading.

What also seems unlikely is that ONAP and OSM, the rival, ETSI-backed initiative, will reach an agreement on a common information and data model. (See Heavy Reading: Common Data Models Unlikely.)

Such an agreement would make it easier for developers to write the code that allows one company's systems to be used alongside or in place of another's.

But few now expect it to happen. "I'll see pigs fly out of one of my private parts before we all agree on a common data model," said David Hughes, the vice president of IP engineering for Hong Kong's PCCW, during Light Reading's OSS event.

Hughes also said that ONAP "is probably an exercise in futility in getting NFV vendors to come up with the same interfaces." That criticism carries venom given that PCCW Ltd. (NYSE: PCW; Hong Kong: 0008) is one of ONAP's members.

Commenting on the hot topic of information models at the same event, Crawshaw said: "The feedback is that this has been tried before and didn't work. There is skepticism that such information models … are that useful, but there does need to be some element of standardization."

The analyst's view is that companies may instead come to rely on more dynamic application programming interfaces and middleware to support interoperability.

But growing support for one initiative over another might also help to address the interoperability problem. "The critical mass of support seems to be with ONAP and only Telefónica is vocally supporting OSM," says Crawshaw.

Representatives from Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC) and Huawei, the world's two biggest equipment makers, are already talking about swinging firmly behind the group that gains the most support in the operator community. Yet if ONAP is currently winning the battle, Telefónica has recently shown little sign of abandoning OSM. (See Tribalism Is Rife in Telecom, Too.)

The Linux Foundation did not respond to Light Reading's request for a comment on the issues discussed in this story.

— Iain Morris, News Editor, Light Reading

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About the Author(s)

Iain Morris

International Editor, Light Reading

Iain Morris joined Light Reading as News Editor at the start of 2015 -- and we mean, right at the start. His friends and family were still singing Auld Lang Syne as Iain started sourcing New Year's Eve UK mobile network congestion statistics. Prior to boosting Light Reading's UK-based editorial team numbers (he is based in London, south of the river), Iain was a successful freelance writer and editor who had been covering the telecoms sector for the past 15 years. His work has appeared in publications including The Economist (classy!) and The Observer, besides a variety of trade and business journals. He was previously the lead telecoms analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit, and before that worked as a features editor at Telecommunications magazine. Iain started out in telecoms as an editor at consulting and market-research company Analysys (now Analysys Mason).

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