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ONF: Building Relationships

Dec 11, 2013
Rick Bauer
Rick Bauer About the author

ONF kicks off liaison program with 14 new partnerships.

From its inception, ONF has been an organization focused on the collaborative efforts of its members. This year we made a goal of the foundation to expand on these efforts by creating our liaison program. The program is designed to further build relationships with member companies and organizations serving as ways to partner, collaborate, host events or activities, address technical issues of common concern, or to formerly communicate to third parties on shared interests.

Kicking-off the program, the below organizations have joined our liaison program to work with ONF on the following:

  • ONF will work with Ethernet Alliance on interoperability projects and activities of mutual concern.
  • ONF is working with IEEE on their 802.16r proposed protocol efforts within ONF's Wireless and Mobile Working and Discussion Groups.
  • ONF has created formal liaisons with various subgroups of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), including Q12/15, Q14/15 question areas.
  • ONF and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) are currently in discussions regarding mobile and wireless standards and SDN.
  • The Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) specifies widely used network services (Carrier Ethernet) and is in the process of defining dynamic services that may benefit from ONF SDN solutions.
  • Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), structured as a committee, was set up under the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). NFV and ONF have many touch points and are in the process of drafting a comprehensive collaboration agreement with several liaisons across various areas of each organization, including both the Migration Working Group and the Market Education Committee.
  • ONF has had several engagements with the Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA) in document review, speaking at their events, and is collaborating on technology demonstrations of open SDN and OpenFlow® in concert with ODCA and the TMForum.
  • ONF and OpenDaylight Project (ODP) have held a number of meetings and are outlining ways to collaborate on open SDN architectures that serve to advance areas of mutual interest.
  • ONF is a sponsor of Open Networking User Group (ONUG) events, and is a regular contributor of speakers and thought leadership for this organization.
  • ONF and OpenStack Cloud Software are collaborating on a number of technical efforts, including software development.
  • ONF and the Facebook-led Open Compute Project (OCP) have collaborated on the new network switch project, starting with ONF’s suggesting that OCP undertake this; our goal is for reference designs to perform well with an OpenFlow® stack and the relevant communication needs between the processor, the switching chip, and the external control plane.
  • Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) creates Implementation Agreements that call out protocols, with the Optical Working Group.
  • SDNCentral and ONF regularly collaborate on a number of end-user facing efforts, including developing a shared directory of OpenFlow® and SDN products, and work together to provide accurate and timely information to the burgeoning end-user community at SDNCentral.
  • ONF worked closely with Tele Management Forum (TMForum) and ODCA by sponsoring a technology demonstration of open SDN and OpenFlow® at the TMForum’s Digital Disruption event this past October in San Jose.
  • US-Ignite and ONF are collaborating on projects in SDN deployments, working with ONF member companies, US-Ignite, and other leading research and development organizations in academia and the private sector.

Over time, ONF will be welcoming new groups into the liaison program. We will be sure to update our constituents as we welcome new liaison partners, and share the activities we are working on with these partnerships. If you are interested in more information on the liaison program, please contact liaisons@opennetworking.org.

- Rick Bauer, Technical Program Manager

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Rick Bauer
Rick Bauer