Virtualization
SNAPS-OO is an Open Sourced Collaborative Development Resource
In a previous blog, I have provided an overview of the SNAPS platform which is CableLabs’ SDN/NFV Application development Platform and Stack project. The key objectives for SNAPS are to make it much easier for NFV vendors to onboard their applications, provide transparent APIs for various kinds of infrastructure and reduce the complexity of integration testing.
I am thrilled to share our latest SNAPS success. We have written an OpenStack API abstraction library that also contains many automated tests and we have contributed it to the Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV) project at the Linux Foundation. OPNFV is a project where service providers and network vendors collaborate to improve the capabilities and adoption of open source Network Functions Virtualization (NFV). Our results have also been shared at NFV World Congress, SDN World Congress, OPNFV Summit [video], Open Networking Summit (ONS) [video] [pdf] and the Big Communications Event (BCE).
The Rationale for our Approach
CableLabs has deep expertise developing specifications by following a collaborative, iterative approach. In many ways, the open source software development process mirrors many of these specification development processes. In the open source communities, CableLabs provides source code and feedback coming from our integration and debugging activity. In fact, CableLabs contributions are included in key open source projects such as OpenStack and OpenDaylight. In this way, we are making it easier for vendors to use open source projects to build solutions for the benefit of the entire ecosystem.
We have generated practical knowledge and insights through our hands-on experience of building and operating an active SDN/NFV application development lab. And we took vendor neutrality to the next level by basing our software stack on purely open source solutions and based on the OPNFV reference configuration. We did not use versions of OpenStack, OpenDaylight, etc. that have been tested and customized by a vendor. This allowed us to interact with a much larger community for new features and fixes.
The CableLabs team supported by vendors and services providers has moved our project into OPNFV as “SNAPS-OO”, based on the idea that it is an Object Oriented way to work with our SDN/NFV Application development Platform and Stack. The project was quickly accepted and is now being used by the release testing team to verify each OPNFV build. With the integration of SNAPS-OO into the OPNFV FuncTest project, our contributions are now part of the release criteria and suite of tests that will be used at the upcoming OPNFV PlugFest next month.
Some of the benefits that SNAPS-OO delivers are:
- Ease of use for new developers
- A rich library of example applications and test suites
- Support for accessing multiple secured clouds
- Automated cleanup of the NFVI when updates are applied
- Quick identification of component failure(s)
As a result of this open source approach, and in just a few weeks since SNAPS-OO was released, we have seen a significant increase in the level of contributions and adoption.
Next Steps
- Continue to expand the capabilities supported by SNAPS-OO.
- Encourage additional OPNFV projects to use SNAPS-OO.
- Use SNAPS-OO and other tools to run much more sophisticated SDN/NFV workloads.
- Share SNAPS-OO with more open source communities.
How SNAPS-OO Benefits Our Membership
SNAPS-OO is helping to improve the quality of the open source projects associated with the NFV infrastructure and Virtualization Infrastructure Managers that many members are using today and plan to use in the future. SNAPS-OO can be used to validate that the infrastructure is installed properly and it will be playing a key role in the Kyrio NFV Interoperability lab. Future NFV development provided by vendors will benefit from the use of SNAPS-OO. With the variety of workloads that we will be running on our SNAPS platform, we will be able to specify a single configuration that can run future NFV workloads alongside other cloud hosted applications.