Open Network Automation Platform
The Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) is a networking project that provides a digital environment for the orchestration and automation of complex network services. ONAP consolidates resources that help to manage the lifecycles of virtual network functions (VNFs), software defined networks (SDNs) and systems that enable programming in the cloud. This open source initiative is hosted by the Linux Foundation and is a combination of the Enhanced Control, Orchestration, Management & Policy (ECOMP) and Open Orchestrator (Open-O) projects.
The ONAP project was launched in February 2017 and has since brought together over 100 network and cloud operators and technology providers.
Features of ONAP
Within various ONAP external APIs, programmers can organize services, policy frameworks, cloud infrastructure and adaption layers, application controllers, design time processes and external systems within the lifecycle of overall project architecture. ONAP helps to structure and maintain schedules within the various moving parts of a larger project. The ONAP runtime environment executes the rules and policies given to it by the design environment. Both the design and runtime environments can be accessed through a role-based access control (RBAC) portal.
The ONAP Operations Manager (OOM) helps with post-deployment management and is responsible for orchestrating the project lifecycle and monitoring all ONAP components. The Active & Available Inventory (A&AI) component delivers real time insights on how the system is running and how the various resources are interrelated. The OOM is integrated with the ONAP Microservices Bus that provides service discovery, system analytics, internal and external API support and software development kits (SDKs).
Use cases for ONAP
ONAP was developed to provide a unified framework for large-scale workloads and services. The ONAP open source community provides blueprints and tests for multiple ONAP use cases, including applications in:
- 5G
- Cross domain and cross layer VPN (CCVPN)
- Voice over LTE (VoLTE)
- Virtual customer premises equipment (vCPE)
- Network virtualization
Benefits of ONAP
Using ONAP provides developers with the following benefits:
- Scalability, flexibility and full automation.
- Organizes many smaller, granular processes with a high-level dashboard.
- Allows businesses to deliver new services quicker and cheaper.
- Facilitates the adoption of network functions virtualization (NFV), SDNs and cloud functionality.
- Reduces capital and operational expenditures.
- Increases operational efficiency.
- Provides best practices and consistent new features due to its open source nature.
- Uses Kubernetes to offer higher CPU