• New LF Networking project focused on 5G platform-as-a-service (PaaS) capabilities
• Name offers high scrabble score options
• LFN updates on other cloud native developments

LF Networking (LFN) has extended its tentacles further into the open source underbelly of telco cloud strategies with the launch of a new project, the curiously-named XGVela.

LFN, the arm of the Linux Foundation that is focused on open source R&D for next generation networking in projects such as ONAP, OPNFV and OpenDaylight, says the formation of the project, based on work contributed by China Mobile, is part of its efforts to “accelerate telco cloud adoption.”

At the heart of XGVela is code designed to enable a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) frame upon which 5G network services (and other applications) can be designed and developed. The initial work has focused on bringing existing open source PaaS functionality from other open source working groups (such as Grafana and Zookeeper – love these names!) and developing that functionality to meet telco requirements. 

In addition to China Mobile, the initial XGVela community comprises China Unicom, China Telecom, ZTE, Ericsson, Nokia, H3C, CICT (China Information and Communication Technologies) and Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications, while Intel and Red Hat have shown interest, according to LFN. 

“With the deployment of 5G, applications of containers and microservice technologies, we believe operator networks will eventually evolve into a cloud native network,” notes Xiaodong Duan, director of network and IT department at the China Mobile Research Institute, in the official launch announcement. “We hope XGVela will gather the most intelligent technicians from operators, vendors and IT companies to help accelerate operators’ cloud native transformation,” he added. 

In associated news from the Linux Foundation, LF Edge announced a new project called Open Horizon, which is focused on “managing the service software lifecycle of containerized workloads and related machine learning assets” in edge computing deployments. 

In a nutshell, the project (contributed by IBM), “simplifies the job of getting the right applications and machine learning onto the right compute devices, and keeps those applications running and updated. It also enables the autonomous management of more than 10,000 edge devices simultaneously,” which would be very handy. 

LF Edge already has a number of projects of interest to telcos, including Akraino Edge Stack and EdgeX Foundry: There are more details on Open Horizon and updates on the other edge projects in this announcement. 

In other news from LFN:

• The Common NFVI Telco Taskforce (CNTT), a joint effort between LFN and the GSMA that is focused on developing reference architectures, is on track for its third release, called Baldy (after a mountain, not a hairstyle), in early June. Its initial work has been focused on virtual machine-based deployments using OpenStack. The second reference architecture workstream will focus on cloud native functionality using Kubernetes and containers, with initial output from those efforts expected in September.  For more on that, and plenty more, see this press release. 

• It has published a white paper on next gen networking technology and how LFN projects related to those developments, as well as an introduction to edge computing.

• The upcoming sixth platform release from ONAP (Open Network Automation Platform) – dubbed ONAP Frankfurt – sounds like a doozy, as it “enhances support for cloud native with deeper Kubernetes integration and for 5G through network slicing and an initial O-RAN integration.” The release also includes “security improvements” and begins the “shift to Python 3 and Java 11,” according to LFN.  

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV

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