World's first ETSI NFV Plugfest

As all know in the telecom industry, the transition from standard to implementation can be painful, as vendors and operators translate technical requirements and specifications into code. There are always room for interpretation and desires to innovate or differentiate that can lead to integration issues. Open source initiatives have been able to provide viable source code for implementation of elements and interfaces and they are a great starting point. The specific vendors and operators’ implementations still need to be validated and it is necessary to test that integration needs are minimal.

Networks Function Virtualization (NFV) is an ETSI standard that is a crucial element of telecom networks evolution as operators are looking at their necessary transformation to accommodate the hyper growth resulting from video services moving to online and mobile.

As a member of the organization’s steering committee, I am happy to announce that the 5G open lab 5Tonic will be hosting the world’s first ETSI NFV plugfest from January 23 to February 3, 2017 with the technical support of Telefonica and IMDEA Networks Institute.  

5Tonic is opening its doors to the NFV community, comprising network operators, vendors and open source collaboration initiatives to assert and compare their implementations of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs), NFV Infrastructure and Virtual Infrastructure Manager. Additionally, implementations of Management and Orchestrations (MANO) functions will also be available.

43 companies and organizations have registered to make this event the largest in NFV interoperability in the world.

Companies:

•           Telefonica

•           A10

•           Cisco

•           Canonical

•           EANTC

•           EHU

•           Ensemble

•           Ericsson

•           F5

•           Fortinet

•           Fraunhofer

•           HPE

•           Huawei

•           Inritsu

•           Intel

•           Italtel

•           Ixia

•           Keynetic

•           Lenovo

•           Mahindra

•           Openet

•           Palo Alto

•           Radware

•           RIFT.io

•           Sandvine

•           Sonus

•           Spirent

•           RedHat

•           VMWare

•           WIND

Open source projects:

•           OSM (Open Source MANO)

•           Open Baton

•           Open-O

•           OPNFV

 OSM is delivering an open source MANO stack aligned with ETSI NFV Information Models. As an operator-led community, OSM is offering a production-quality open source MANO stack that meets the requirements of commercial NFV networks.

Testing will take place on site at the 5TONIC lab near Madrid, as well as virtually for remote participants.