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OPNFV Creates End User Advisory Group to Inform Project’s Technical Direction and Approach

By 2016-08-188月 22nd, 2017Press Release

Open Source NFV project leverages real-world expertise of key networking experts from leading carriers and service providers including AT&T, China Mobile, Cox Communications, Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, Sprint and more  

SAN FRANCISCO, August 18, 2016 — The OPNFV Project, a carrier-grade, integrated, open source platform intended to accelerate the introduction of new products and services using Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), today announced the project has formed an End User Advisory Group (EUAG) consisting of end-user organizations from both OPNFV members and nonmembers to provide technical guidance to the OPNFV developer community.

Founding members include:

  • AT&T’s Toby Ford, assistant vice president of Cloud Infrastructure and Platform Architecture and Strategy; Bryan Sullivan, director of Open Source Strategy; and Steven Wright, lead member of Technical Staff

  • British Telecom’s Milind Bhagwat, enterprise architect and technology strategy lead

  • CableLabs’ Don Clarke, principal network architect; Randy Levensalor, lead software architect; and Tetsuya Nakamura, principal systems architect

  • China Mobile’s Lingli Deng, project manager

  • China Unicom’s Chuan Jia and Junjie Tong from the Network Technology Research Institute of China Unicom, Department of Network Technology Research

  • Cox Communications’ Guy Meador, senior strategic architect; and Jeff Finkelstein, executive director of Advanced Access Architecture

  • Deutsche Telekom’s Herbert Damker, senior expert, Group Technology

  • Fidelity Investment’s Carlos Matos, director of global network architecture

  • Liberty Global’s Uzari Firoze, manager, Business-to-Business Network Design

  • KDDI’s Hajime Miyamoto, senior engineer and Kenichi Ogaki, assistant manager

  • KDDI Lab’s Masanori Miyazawa, research manager

  • Orange’s Morgan Richomme, NFV architect

  • SK Telecom’s Jong Han Park, head of 5G Tech Lab, Network Technology R&D Center

  • Sprint’s Serge Manning, senior technology strategist, Global Standards

  • Telecom Italia’s Cecilia Corbi, standardization manager

  • Telefonica’s Diego Lopez, senior technology expert  

  • Telia Company’s Johan Gustawsson, network architect, SDN and NFV

  • Vodafone Group’s David Amzallag, group head of Network Virtualization, SDN and NFV; and Kodi Atuchukwu, network virtualisation architect, Vodafone Ocean

Created to provide a forum for end users to assist and support the project’s objectives by providing technical and strategic guidance to the OPNFV governing bodies (including the Technical Steering Committee (TSC), the Board of Directors and the Certification & Compliance Committee), the EUAG is comprised of members experienced in running some of the world’s most cutting-edge networks.

“The formation of the OPNFV EUAG will harness the knowledge and expertise of those responsible for actually running real-world networks as they deploy and scale,” said Heather Kirksey, director, OPNFV. “Feedback from the ecosystem using and deploying NFV is crucial to the future direction of OPNFV. Engaging these pioneers will help us address the most pressing pain points for the industry and build a platform with broad applicability.”

The EUAG meets monthly to discuss key challenges, standards, network architecture, and emerging use cases related to NFV. The first meeting was held June 26, 2016 and the next meeting is scheduled for August 31. The group is chaired by AT&T’s Steven Wright, who will serve a two-year term while delegates may serve for as long as they like. EUAG member eligibility includes individuals at network operators (service providers–cloud or network, telco or cable operators, enterprises, government or educational institutions) who have current or prior experience in a) management of a production deployed network, b) architecting of a production deployed network, or c) serving as network software or hardware decision maker.

“AT&T values the industry interoperability efforts pioneered by OPNFV to enable a VNF ecosystem,” said Steven Wright, lead member of technical staff at AT&T and chair of the OPNFV EUAG. “We are excited to be more active in this community by contributing code directly and with vendors.”

More details on the OPNFV EUAG can be found here, including the group’s Wiki page, official Charter and Member Agreement. EUAG meeting minutes are public and posted to the EUAG wiki page. New members are welcome to join the group at any time; requests to join and questions should be sent to: user-advisory@opnfv.org.

Comments from founding OPNFV EUAG members (in alphabetical order by company name):

Milind Bhagwat, British Telecom: “BT has been instrumental in the development of NFV and continues to heavily leverage this technology to make our network services more dynamic. We’ve learned that integration between legacy and new implementations is critical in determining the speed at which networks can be transformed. I’m pleased to be able to bring BT’s experience and perspectives to the OPNFV EUAG.”

Don Clarke, CableLabs: “CableLabs is tasked with developing technologies and standards on behalf of the cable industry. As a founding member of OPNFV we are keen to see the community address the needs of network operators for a reliable and replicable NFV platform based on open source. The EUAG will enable end users to share their experience with the platform, and provide useful guidance to the community on priorities for focused and timely development.”

Lingli Deng, China Mobile: “OPNFV continues to gain more experience with integration and delivering more and more stable and mature releases. End users are able to provide invaluable insights into deploying OPNFV releases, business demands and their impact on the network, and conducting PoCs/trials. This greatly benefits the community and helps ensure practical and successful OPNFV deployments.”  

Morgan Richomme, Orange: “Orange has been involved in OPNFV since day one. We are actively contributing to several projects around the ecosystem and actually speeding up the selection process of the best open source components for NFV. The OPNFV EUAG will be the perfect place to get in touch with business owners, share best practices and concerns. As a contributor, we expect the initiative to help consolidate our position, especially in the testing area. Another goal is also to encourage end users to contribute more in order to shape OPNFV for the enterprise.”

Serge Manning, Sprint: “This advisory group will be an important forum for those of us in the trenches – the technologists that are running real-world networks – to guide and accelerate the adoption of open source NFV.”

Diego Lopez, Telefonica: “The open playground OPNFV aims to establish is a very valuable element of a thriving ecosystem for NFV, easing the collection of requirements for upstream projects like OSM, and facilitating their validation and experimentation by potential users. Furthermore, OPNFV provides an interesting common ground for further research activities in the NFV technologies themselves and in advanced application environments like 5G.”

Johan Gustawsson, Telia Company: “By engaging directly with a handful of OPNFV upstream projects and witnessing its broad industry traction, it’s clear the project is highly credible and brings together various components to accelerate the development and adoption of an open end-to-end platform for NFV. Through this newly formed advisory group, I believe we can achieve a strong level of engagement and collaboration with operator peers and the broader community to address common challenges.”

OPNFV recently hosted its annual Summit in Berlin on June 22-23, 2016. The Summit brought together 620 members of the OPNFV community including network operators, vendors,  developers and end users. Eighteen service provider companies–including several from our EUAG– were in attendance to participate in a keynote panel, six PoC Demos, and as speakers in more than 25 track sessions. To watch OPNFV Director Heather Kirksey’s opening keynote or view presentation slides, photos and other content from the Summit visit the recap page here.

About the Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV)

Open Platform for NFV is a carrier-grade, integrated, open source flexible platform intended to accelerate the introduction of new products and services using NFV. It brings together service providers, vendors and users to collaborate in an open forum on advancing the state-of-the-art in NFV. For more information, please visit  http://www.opnfv.org.

OPNFV is Collaborative Project at the Linux Foundation. Linux Foundation Collaborative Projects are independently funded software projects that harness the power of collaborative development to fuel innovation across industries and ecosystems. www.linuxfoundation.org.

Additional Resources

How to Participate

OPNFV Resources

OPNFV Blog

 

Media Inquires

Jill Lovato

OPNFV Project

pr@opnfv.org

 

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