ONOS Project, Linux Foundation partner for SDN development

The ONOS Project, the software defined networking (SDN) operating system initiative led by ON.Lab (see "ON.Lab, backed by AT&T and NTT, offers open source SDN operating system"), will partner with The Linux Foundation in hopes of boosting development and use of the technology.

By becoming a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project, the ONOS group will be able to leverage the Foundation's expertise in open source software project governance and community participation, particularly in the areas of open source processes and practices.

The agreement comes as the ONOS project has issued four open source releases of the operating system since December 2014. The group also has demonstrated architectural features such as scalability, high performance, high availability, modularity, and the ability to support OpenFlow as well as NETCONF and other southbound protocols. The project also has demonstrated a number of ONOS-enabled service provider applications such as Central Office Re-architected as Data Center (CORD; see "AT&T, ON.Lab to lead CORD proof-of-concept demonstration"), packet-optical convergence, SDN-IP peering, and others.

"Now is the perfect time to partner with the Linux Foundation," said Guru Parulkar, executive director and board member at ON.Lab/ONOS project. "They bring a number of resources and also provide a measure of trust and sustainability through a well-built brand that delivers extended reach to our collaborative community and accelerates innovation on an even larger scale. ONOS's services provider, vendor, and research partners welcome the partnership and look forward to the benefits of scale, awareness and sustainability that it will provide."

"Service providers are increasingly adopting open source software to build their networks and today are making open source and collaboration a strategic part of their business and an investment in the future," said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. "The Linux Foundation recognizes the impact the ONOS project can have on service provider networks and will help advance ONOS to achieve its potential. The partnership combines the best of the two organizations' capabilities in support of a strategic vision to transform service provider infrastructure with open source SDN and NFV."

The OpenDaylight project also is under the Linux Foundation umbrella.

ON.Lab and the ONOS project will continue with their respective boards and the ONOS mission will remain unchanged, the group's leadership team say.

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