The OpenDaylight Project, a collective effort at the Linux Foundation that aims to advance the development and deployment of software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV), has announced the availability of Lithium, its third open software release. The release was developed as a companion to Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV).
The Lithium release offers several improvements from the previous release, Helium:
- Increased scalability and performance.
- More support of network services for cloud data center platforms via native support for the OpenStack Neutron framework combined with features such as SFC, Virtual Tenant Networking (VTN) and Group-Based Policy (GBP). These upgrades enable users to design device, user, and group-level policies that include customized service chains for firewall, load balancing, and other application network services.
- Enhanced security and automation features that include Unified Secure Channel, which eases secure communication between OpenDaylight and widely distributed networking equipment; Time Series Data Repository (TSDR), which enables collection and analysis of large amounts of network activity; Device Identification and Driver Management (DIDM), which is a framework that enables the extension of OpenDaylight automation features to non-OpenFlow devices; Persistence, which ensures application-specific data is preserved over time or in the event of a catastrophe; and Topology Processing Framework, which supports filtered and/or aggregated views of a network, including multi-protocol, underlay, and overlay representations.
- New and enhanced APIs for interoperability that include Network Intent Composition (NIC), which enables the controller to manage and direct network services and resources based on describing the "intent” for network behaviors and network policies, and Application Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO), which provides abstractions and services for simplified network views and network services. In addition, interoperability with OpenStack Neutron has been improved to support better feature parity with Neutron including native Distributed Virtual Router (DVR) services for cloud orchestration.
- Six new protocols to support additional use cases; these include Source Group Tag eXchange (SXP), Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP), IoT Data Management (IoTDM), SMNP Plugin, Open Policy Framework (OpFlex), and Control and Provisioning of Wireless Access Points (CAPWAP).
"Our second release Helium was deployed in a wide variety of use cases--from people looking to better manage and orchestrate their existing networks to Internet of Things and smart cities, to those who are managing clouds and deploying or testing NFV,” said Neela Jacques, executive director, OpenDaylight. "With Lithium, OpenDaylight meets the needs of people going into production and we'll be expanding on these use cases at the OpenDaylight Summit this July.”
The second annual OpenDaylight Summit will take place July 27-31 in Santa Clara, CA.
For more information on high-speed transmission systems and suppliers, visit the Lightwave Buyer's Guide.