The Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) Project recently announced that Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (Jio) has joined as a Platinum member. The addition of Jio, a top telecommunications, digital platform and services provider in India, to a project that has brought together open source community members and industry leaders from Asia, Europe and North America serves to further differentiate ONAP as the fastest-growing open networking initiative. Jio’s membership demonstrates the company’s commitment to work with open source communities to help drive innovation across the telecommunication industry, including software-defined networks (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV).
ONAP is a collaborative open source project hosted by The Linux Foundation and formed in February through the combination of AT&T’s ECOMP and The Linux Foundation’s Open Orchestrator Project (OPEN-O). The two projects joined under ONAP to develop an open software platform for real-time, policy-driven software automation of virtual network functions. ONAP enables software, network and cloud provider companies as well as open source community developers to collaborate in an open ecosystem, encouraging rapid creation of new services and innovation.
ONAP is one of the largest open source networking initiatives, with members including Amdocs, AT&T, Bell Canada, China Mobile, China Telecom, Cisco, Ericsson, GigaSpaces, Huawei, IBM, Intel, Nokia, Orange, Tech Mahindra, VMware, ZTE and other leading network operators, OEMs and platform providers. Jio is the first India-based operator to join ONAP.
Reliance Jio, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited, has built a world-class, all-IP network with 4G LTE technology. It is the only network created as a mobile video network from the ground up and supporting voice over LTE technology. Jio has become the largest operator globally in terms of data carried across its nationwide 4G network.
“We are excited Reliance Jio is joining ONAP as a Platinum member,” said Chris Rice, ONAP Chair and Senior Vice President of AT&T Labs. “The company’s membership continues to expand ONAP’s global reach as we push toward the acceptance of ONAP as the global, industry platform for SDN and NFV. ONAP aims to create and foster a dynamic community for networking automation and we look forward to Reliance Jio’s support.”
“We are especially excited to collaborate with the ONAP community, using our respective assets and resources in the open source community,” said Mathew Oommen, President of Reliance Jio. “By working with AT&T, The Linux Foundation and other ONAP members, we look forward to contributing towards a fundamental shift in the framework of telecommunications to a cloud-centric digital platform that developers, partners and customers alike can shape to deliver value.”
Jio’s participation in ONAP reaffirms its dedication to aggressive network transformation utilizing open source platforms to evolve beyond its all-IP and rich media services 4G LTE network. By contributing to open source initiatives, Jio supports rapid delivery of innovative and affordable services across wireless, wireline, content and at-home services.
“Jio is committed to being an active participant in driving the ONAP ecosystem by contributing to the project, driving efficiency and further enhancing its service creation, delivery and management capabilities,” said Mr. Oommen.
To further its work in open source to support The Linux Foundation and next-gen service innovation and development, Jio is creating global centers of excellence, providing resources for driving new programs and initiatives. Jio’s Platinum membership in ONAP provides a platform for accelerating these efforts.
The Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) Project brings together top global carriers and vendors with the goal of allowing end users to automate, design, orchestrate and manage services and virtual functions. ONAP unites two major open networking and orchestration projects, open source ECOMP and the Open Orchestrator Project (OPEN-O), with the mission of creating a unified architecture and implementation and supporting collaboration across the open source community. The ONAP Project is a Linux Foundation project.
