OPNFV Project announces OVP
The OPNFV Project recently announced the OPNFV Verified Program (OVP) in an effort to ease the adoption of commercial network functions virtualization (NFV) products. The purpose of the program, according to OPNFV, is to help operators establish entry criteria for their proof of concepts (POCs) and request for proposals (RFPs).
The OPNFV Project is an open source project within The Linux Foundation focused on facilitating the development and evolution of NFV components. As part of the OVP initiative, verified products and services submitted by respective vendors and service providers become compliant, receiving an OVP certified logo in the process. OVP provides both vendor self-testing and third-party lab testing.
OPNFV members worked to determine a framework and consensus for an initial set of capabilities. The OVP will initially test and verify NFV infrastructure components and features, such as FVI, VIM, underlying cloud infrastructure, basic packet forwarding, IPv6 and VPN. The program may be extended to include virtual network functions (VNFs), among other components, over time.
“We are breaking new ground by leveraging open source platforms to measure compliance of commercial products,” said Heather Kirksey, VP, community and ecosystem development, The Linux Foundation. “This is a huge step for the industry, and speaks to the power of open, community-driven solutions to help the ecosystem in real-world deployments. I am incredibly proud of the collaborative work that has gone into establishing this set of common NFV platform requirements to aid the industry on the path towards robust NFV deployments.”
OPNFV has been involved in certification and compliance with its plugfest events. Last December, for example, the organization held its fourth OPNFV Plugfest in Hillsboro, Ore. The event focused on the interoperability of the OPNFV platform in deployment, network integration and VNF applications.
OVP was refined and finalized through the feedback of several vendors, including Huawei, Nokia, Wind River and ZTE, during a beta program. These organizations are the first to receive the OPNFV verified mark and logo. Vendors can download the Dovetail framework on the OPNFV website.
“Nokia is very excited to support openness in networking by joining the first companies in the OPNFV Verified program,” said Antti Romppanen, head of Cloud Foundation product management, Nokia. “Being able to verify the compatibility of the OPNFV software with our AirFrame data center solution, which is based on open hardware specifications from the Open Compute Project, demonstrates the power of open source across the NFV infrastructure. Going forward, we expect to raise the bar in OPNFV to extend the verification to higher layers and to make the open platform even more competitive.”
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