Omdia’s take on the January 2021 merger of CNTT and OPNFV to form the new LFN project Anuket. Anuket will continue to define and certify NFVI configurations to enhance performance and provision for VNF, and increasingly CNF deployments.
Omdia view
Summary
In September 2020 the Linux Foundation’s Open Platform for Network Functions Virtualization (OPNFV) and the user group Cloud iNfrastructure Telco Taskforce (CNTT), announced they would merge in 2021 to form a new project group, “Anuket,” within the Linux Foundation dedicated to refining the industry specifications for network functions virtualization infrastructure (NFVI). In melding these groups, Anuket hopes to more tightly intertwine the release and testing of NFVI specifications. This should accelerate the telco industry’s deployment of NFVIs which can offer an optimized platform for any network function, be it physical, virtual, or cloud-native. The full launch of the new Anuket project is set to take place on January 27 2021.
If you want to go fast, go alone
Founded in 2014, OPNFV delivered 10 releases, the most recent, Jerma, dropping in December 2020. OPNFV’s mission statement was to “reduce the time to integrate and deploy NFV infrastructure and onboard VNF/CNFs... The OPNFV community does this by implementing, testing and deploying tools for conformance and performance of NFV infrastructure, aligned with industry reference architectures.” OPNFV served the industry well as it gave suppliers and operators ample opportunity to test their NFVI and associated VNFs. In 2019 it was estimated that there were around 60 certified NFVI configurations. However, the group has not managed to solve the issue of integration, deployment, and operation of NFVI. The industry reference architectures have been too broad—60 certified NFVI configurations is impressive, but too many for a software industry to enact and offer full interoperability. Consolidation was on the cards.
CNTT formed in early 2019, its aim to “establish a framework that includes a reference model, reference architectures, and compliance verification suites.” It would do this by providing “standardized infrastructures for both virtual machine-based and cloud-native network functions, making it possible to deploy multiple network functions without having to create new infrastructures for each.” This actualized itself in two streams, R1 focused on the architecture, implementation and conformance of OpenStack virtual machine (VM) based deployments; R2 focused on Kubernetes cloud-native deployments. Both of these streams fed their specifications to the OPNFV Verification Program (OVP) as shown in the CNTT’s scope diagram (below).
CNTT published its initial common reference model and first reference architecture based on OpenStack six months after launch, and its first standalone release–Baldy–in May 2020. Baldy included initial specifications for R2 Kubernetes-based deployments. The rest of 2020 saw both groups continue work on these specifications. OPNFV release 10—Jerma—is dedicated to certifying and providing testing tools for the R1 OpenStack based NFVI CNTT released in Baldy. CNTT has continued to push forward with R2, and also looked towards a third stream focused on edge NFVI.
Figure 1: CNTT Scope
Source: Linux Foundation
If you want to go far, go together
The meld of CNTT and OPNFV makes sense, especially as in 2020, OPNFV looked to be almost solely driven by the progress and ambition of CNTT. Anuket, an Egyptian Goddess who presides over the whitewater shallows of the Nile, and whose name can be translated as “Embracer,” is a programmatic and hopeful name for the combined group. Anuket’s new mission statement succinctly embraces the core missions of both OPNFV and CNTT:
“Empower the global communications community by creating and developing reference cloud infrastructure models, architectures, conformance programs, and tools to deliver network services faster, more reliably, and securely.”
While Anuket already has a good starting point with OpenStack based NFVI specifications to date, the group must continue to work at pace on the former CNTT’s R2 Kubernetes stream if it is to enhance NFVI deployments for CNFs. CNF deployments are already underway with several operators turning on standalone 5G in 2020, which includes a greater number of CNFs.
In pursuit of success, Anuket is already committed to continuing its collaboration with other industry projects, a key one being the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). Anuket must also look to gather new participants, including the public cloud providers. Though AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud look to have had little to do with either OPNFV or CNTT, their input could be crucial for Anuket as CSPs look to host additional network workloads on cloud provider infrastructure, and continue to partner with these providers to offer and monetize new edge computing services. The ability to attract these, and other players, like suppliers focused on developing Edge NFVI, will be a key metric to watch in 2021 when judging how far Anuket will go to solving the telco industry’s issues of integration, deployment and operation of NFVI going forward.
The Anuket launch event will take place on January 27, with more information available here. This opinion forms part of the Omdia Carrier Network Software Service Open Source Series that will be developed throughout CY21.
Appendix
Further reading
“Anuket Rising — an Update on the CNTT + OPNFV Merger” (Jan 2021)
“Bringing it home with Jerma: The 10th and final OPNFV release” (Dec 2020)
2021 Trends to Watch: NFV & Carrier SDN (Nov 2020)
“OPNFV + CNTT Join: When the River and the Mountain Meet” (Sep 2020)
CNTT: https://www.lfnetworking.org/about/cntt/
OPNFV: https://www.opnfv.org/
Author
Chris W Silberberg, Research Analyst, Carrier Network Software