LF Networking Archives

Jul 06

Anuket Issues Kali Release, Fully Merges Work of CNTT + OPNFV

By Anuket Blog, News

By: Al Morton, TSC Co-Chair, Anuket

It is my great honor to announce and describe the Kali Release of the Anuket Project in the Linux Foundation Networking (LFN) organization.

As the Anuket Project’s first release, Kali benefits from the combined expertise and contributions from the two organizations that merged early this year: the Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV) open source project in LFN and the Cloud iNfrastructure Telco Task Force (CNTT). Many work streams developing Reference specifications and projects developing implementations, testing utilities, telemetry collection and management, and other capabilities comprise the Kali Release.

For the AIRSHIP Installer, the Kali release brings enhanced support of OpenStack provider network and QOS in the Anuket RI-1 and further alignment to the RC-1 policy settings. As a result, the Reference Compliance (RC) compliance level has increased significantly.

The Barometer telemetry project code focusses on changes that will make testing and integrating easier. While this release updates to the collectd 5.12, A new reference container was added for the collectd-6.0 version (under development). This represents a big API change and easier plugin porting in the future.

The CIRV-Software Delivery Verification project added Validation of the Openstack Security Checklist, Implementation of the CNTT Pod Descriptor Format (PDF), a GUI tool to create PDF, and Implements Updates to PDF based on Elbrus Release.

The Functest project delivered is a collection of state-of-the-art virtual infrastructure test suites, including automatic VNF testing. It includes about 3000+ functional tests. Functest actively support OpenStack and Kubernetes testing, respectively from Train to Wallaby and from v1.18 to v1.21, and the Kali branch (2020) is still active.

The ViNePERF project kept its automated, standards-compliant, testing platform up to date. In Kali Release, ViNePerf has added support for Kubernetes dataplane performane benchmarking for North-South Traffic – Single Pod and Multipod. Also enhanced reporting to support both Openstack and Kubernetes, and support for Fedora 33, Ubuntu 20.04, DPDK:20.05, OVS:2.14.0, VPP:21.01

The Reference Model Specification drives Anuket’s Reference Architectures, Compliance and Implementations projects. This release includes a new flexible model to support evolving technologies and a variety of deployment styles. The Hybrid Multi-Cloud model and New security requirements including IaC Security, DevSecOps best practices for Infrastructure are included.

The Reference Architecture for IaaS orchestrated by OpenStack now includes major enhancements to the security requirements and practices, and coverage of cloud topologies including the Edge. Cloud Topology changes including Distributed control and Edge Content. Major enhancements to the Security Requirements, too.

The Reference Architecture for Kubernetes systems includes an explicit definition of K8s release and API policy (Update to K8s 1.21). It defines mandatory features as part of the new Special Interest Group requirements chapter, aiding automatic conformance testing.

There were no major changes in the Reference Conformance (RC) specifications for OpenStack, but the RC specs for K8s add all new Special Interest Group test cases.

The Reference Installer for K8s and Kuberef project updated Kubernetes components and added new features introduced in RA2. They updated the RI2 Cookbook to support deployment of new RA2/RM requirements, and added support for RI2 deployment on multiple OS (CentOS and Ubuntu based).

The newly-formed Community Coordination sub-Committee (CCC) took on its first task to assist with community coordination: the preparation of overall documentation for projects participating in the Kali Release.

The Anuket work on the next release, Lakelse, has already begun. We are looking for more ways to integrate the constituents and projects in even more cohesive ways, and re-start the verification program, now called Anuket-Assured.

All-in-all, a very complete set of improved specifications and open source test, install, and monitroing capabilities were delivered in this release. Take some time to examine the release in more detail and see what the “power of Kali” can do for you! From [KALIDOCS], users can read, install, configure, and find user guides when they are ready.

Mar 01

Love0

Anuket’s Elbrus Release is Here

By Brandon Wick Blog, News

By: Walter Kozlowski, Principal Architect, Cloud Infrastructure Services, Telstra; Anuket TSC Co-Chair

Elbrus, the latest version of the LFN Anuket reference model, specifications, implementations and conformance tests for network cloud infrastructure was released to the public on January 29 this year. Keeping in mind that Anuket is a Linux Foundation Networking project launched in January this year out of a merger of CNTT (Cloud iNfrastructure Telco Taskforce) with OPNFV (Open Platform for Network Functions Virtualization), one has to appreciate this community effort to deliver on time such a large multi-project release. Elbrus builds upon the CNTT Baraque release delivered in September 2020, of which the reference model component was published as a GSMA permanent reference document NG.126.

So, what is new in Elbrus?

To start with, it provides numerous specification and implementation updates in a constant battle to keep up with the technology upgrades. Then, more test cases have been added to the Reference Compliance projects, making this important for the industry program even more comprehensive.

However, I believe the primary significance of the Elbrus release is its decisive move towards the cloud native paradigm – which is far from being trivial or even, in some aspects, understood in the context of the complex world of telecommunications. Hence, in Elbrus we started new chapters on hybrid, multi-cloud models covering a wide range of use cases from the Data Center to the Edge, from Private to Public Cloud, from enterprise application workloads to 5G, remembering that containerization and cloud native principals are the real drivers behind the evolution of these use cases.

The Anuket community of telco operators and their technology suppliers is very sensitive to the real-life challenges of the industry. Hence, a lot of new content was devoted to extending narratives around topics like operations, automation, security, hardware management, hardware acceleration, multi-networking in the containerized network infrastructure, and network programmability. To tackle such a wide range of complex topics, we made sure that top industry experts participated in the creation of Elbrus. However, we also made many efforts to reach out to a wider community, initializing or strengthening Anuket’s relationship with other LFN projects as well as with several industry organizations like GSMA, ETSI, CNCF, Open Infrastructure Foundation, O-RAN Alliance, and others.

Results of these new topics started in Elbrus will be undoubtedly visible in the next Anuket release expected around the middle of 2021. In the meantime, see the details for Elbrus release here.

Learn how to get started with Anuket here.