Open Source MANO Release NINE fulfils ETSI's zero-touch automation vision, ready for MEC and O-RAN use cases

Sophia Antipolis, 18 December 2020

ETSI is pleased to announce the launch of OSM Release NINE today. With an array of new features, this Release completes the alignment process with ETSI NFV specifications, culminating in native adoption of ETSI GS NFV-SOL006 for network functions and service modelling. Standardizing the onboarding process for VNFs into OSM fosters interoperability and boosts the growth of OSM’s VNF ecosystem. Release NINE coincides with the announcement of a new production deployment, confirming OSM as the most comprehensive open-source NFV orchestrator and a key enabler for zero-touch end-to-end network and service automation.

OSM Release NINEOSM Release NINE is the result of almost five years of development and part of the industry’s greater effort towards adopting standards, striving to ensure a healthy and diverse ecosystem of interoperable orchestrators, clouds, and network functions. 

Antonio Marsico, Chair of the OSM End User Advisory Group (EUAG) and OSM Liaison Officer with ETSI NFV ISG, confirms: “Standards alignment is at the heart of the OSM project vision, as the means to foster and develop a wide ecosystem in which network operators can accelerate the development of NFV solutions. OSM Release NINE goes a step further in supporting carrier-grade requirements and production readiness by adopting ETSI NFV standards and software maturity.

The OSM community is providing valuable feedback to the ETSI NFV ISG on the practical challenges faced when adopting the latest technologies and deploying in diverse environments. In this regard, the ETSI NFV&MEC PlugtestsTM events as well as OSM Hackfests go far beyond mere demonstrations, enabling multi-vendor interoperability to be validated in real integration conditions. Early feedback is instrumental in closing the loop of the standardization process and helping to accelerate time to market for the new generation of standard-based network solutions.

Bringing ETSI’s OSM project close to our NFV standardization activity has helped to guarantee strong alignment between the two. ETSI’s OSM leverages a fruitful collaboration between more than 140 organizations in the group and over 120 industry players in the NFV ISG, ensuring to meet market requirements. The first OSM production deployment in Latin America is a major achievement of this collaboration,” says Luis Jorge Romero, ETSI Director-General.

Release NINE highlights

With this release, the OSM community is fulfilling the top emerging demands in the telco cloud market. Alongside comprehensive support for the latest developments in Kubernetes, which is being increasingly adopted in the network industry, OSM is also embracing the most recent use cases from ETSI MEC (Multi-access Edge Computing) and O-RAN, ensuring it is ready to facilitate their deployment and operation. As a result, OSM Release NINE provides several exciting new features: 

  • Next Generation of Resource Orchestration: enables OSM to manage differential scenarios and be ready for smooth support of the rollback and resumption of new deployments over different infrastructures.
  • Extended VNF and CNF lifecycle management: the VNF configuration engine has been extended to support Helm 3, the new version of the package format for Kubernetes applications, and to allow the centralized operation of distributed CNFs. Among other benefits, this improves the resiliency of highly distributed edge deployments.
  • Smooth integration with external systems: production deployments require the integration of OSM with external systems, which has been significantly simplified in this release, with enhancements in role-based access control (RBAC) and support for standardized subscription and notification APIs for OSS/BSS.
  • User Interface improvements: multi-tenancy has been added to OSM’s Grafana dashboard along with numerous improvements in the Graphical User Interface (GUI).

New end-to-end production deployment

This new Release comes as Telefónica Chile has recently announced a production deployment of OSM in Latin America. With this deployment, Telefónica Movistar Chile is the first operator in Latin America to adopt ETSI standards for VNF orchestration. In addition, other operators are actively testing OSM and preparing its launch in other parts of the world.

All information about OSM and its dynamic community can be found on the OSM website.

No clue about OSM? Watch this 20 mins video: I Deployed my Snowflake and it Didn't Melt! Now What?

About ETSI
ETSI provides members with an open and inclusive environment to support the development, ratification and testing of globally applicable standards for ICT systems and services across all sectors of industry and society.  We are a not-for-profit body with more than 900 member organizations worldwide, drawn from 65 countries and five continents. Members comprise a diversified pool of large and small private companies, research entities, academia, government and public organizations. ETSI is officially recognized by the EU as a European Standards Organization (ESO). For more information, please visit us at https://www.etsi.org/.

About ETSI OSM
ETSI OSM is a community-led project delivering a production-quality open-source Management and Orchestration (MANO) stack aligned with ETSI NFV Information Models. To learn more about OSM, please visit http://osm.etsi.org/

Contact
Claire Boyer
Mob: +33 (0)6 87 60 84 40
Email: claire.boyer@etsi.org