Telecom Industry and Vendors Unite to Build Common Open Platform to Accelerate Network Functions Virtualization

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - September 30, 2014) - The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux and collaborative development, today announced the founding of the Open Platform for NFV Project (OPNFV). OPNFV will be a carrier-grade, integrated, open source reference platform intended to accelerate the introduction of new products and services.

Platinum-level founding members include AT&T, Brocade, China Mobile, Cisco, Dell, Ericsson, HP, Huawei, IBM, Intel, Juniper Networks, NEC, Nokia Networks, NTT DOCOMO, Red Hat, Telecom Italia and Vodafone. Silver-level founding members include 6WIND, Alcatel-Lucent, ARM, Broadcom, CableLabs, Cavium, CenturyLink, Ciena, Citrix, ClearPath Networks, ConteXtream, Coriant, Cyan, Dorado Software, Ixia, Metaswitch Networks, Mirantis, Orange, Sandvine, Sprint and Wind River.

"Open source code has been proven to accelerate innovation and time to market for new technologies," said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. "The Open Platform for NFV will bring together providers, cloud and infrastructure vendors, developers and users alike to define a new type of reference platform for the industry, integrating existing open source building blocks with new components and testing that accelerates development and deployment of NFV. We are excited to host this important industry initiative that will provide a common foundation for the future of networks."

Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Software-Defined Networking (SDN) are part of the overall industry shift towards network and application virtualization. Together they are expected to dramatically change the networking landscape, allowing providers to deliver new services to their customers more quickly while significantly reducing both operating and capital expenditures. These technologies bring both cloud computing and Information Technology (IT) capabilities and benefits into the telecom industry, enabling new levels of flexibility and business growth opportunities for providers. Service provider applications have different demands than most IT applications, so an open platform integrating multiple open source components and ensuring continuous testing for carrier-grade service performance is essential to this transition.