AT&T (NYSE: T) announced on July 13 it will release its Enhanced Control, Orchestration, Management and Policy (ECOMP) platform to the wider telecom industry as an open source offering managed by the Linux Foundation. The goal, the company said, is to make ECOMP the telecom industry's standard automation platform for managing virtual network functions and other software-centric network capabilities.
SDN refers to Software Defined Networking.
UPDATE: Some background might be helpful. On March 15, 2016 AT&T announced Our SDN Call to Action on their Innovation Space blog:
For almost two years now, we have been architecting and coding a large software project called ECOMP. That stands for Enhanced Control, Orchestration, Management and Policy. It’s a mouthful. But it’s also important. ECOMP is an infrastructure delivery platform and a scalable, comprehensive network cloud service. It provides automation of many service delivery, service assurance, performance management, fault management, and SDN tasks. It is designed to work with OpenStack but is extensible to other cloud and compute environments. ECOMP is the engine that powers our software-centric network.
Now, we’re opening the hood of our network and showing you the engine. ECOMP automates the network services and infrastructure that will run in the cloud. A system like ECOMP is very powerful as it allows us to build our next generation cloud-based network in a vendor agnostic way, giving us great flexibility for deploying NFV / SDN in our network. As a model-driven platform, this framework costs less than maintaining existing network systems. And it allows us to accelerate the implementation of new services quicker than ever before. ECOMP is one of the most challenging, complex and sophisticated software projects in AT&T’s history.
So, what’s next? We have written a whitepaper on ECOMP [pdf] that we’re making publicly available starting today. We did this to give the industry an idea of our thinking and direction. On a global scale, we know the needs we have are similar to the rest of the industry and other cloud services providers.
There are several more background docs on their blog as well.
Consider that a virtual machine (VM) presents the appearance of a real machine on which software may be run. It is now relative easy and commonplace to spin up a new VM for development and production purposes. ECOMP appears to provide similar tools by which networking can be virtualized and manipulated at a higher level of abstraction and flexibility.
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I came across an article a few hours ago, http://www.networkworld.com/article/3121969/lan-wan/virtualizing-wan-capabilities.html
I was wondering how much of all that makes sense. It seems to put a lot of focus on the virtual buzz that exists today everywhere and it seems to be being pushed in networking as well. While I don't mind this being implemented by those who want to, I am a bit of a fanboy of the saying "Hardware is King". All this "IT as a service" doesn't seem to have much sense unless one defines what IT is. It may range from just a shared printer, to an entire rack full of servers and switches, to an entire floor full of them. Virtualised WANs and the notion of a 'WAN as a service' could be easy as a breeze to be managed, but how robust could they be? While performance needs at the network level always go up, how does this relate to virtualizing that in itself, transforming it into yet another layer down the stack? A layer which encapsulates all the other layers and which in turn may contain such a layer too. How deep would the nesting level go?
From the article:
"In the network, NFV [Network Functions Virtualization] allows routers, switches, firewalls, load balancers, content delivery systems, end-user devices, IMS [IP Multimedia Subsystem] Nodes, and almost any other network function to be run as software on virtual machines—ultimately, on shared servers, using shared storage," Honnachari explained in an executive brief.
Basically it is the promise of being able to draw a network in a CAD-like software, and push a "Run" button.
Then there is also:
In a world where every part of business is moving, ever faster, the new WAN era will be characterized by user-intuitive solutions that help businesses sense and adapt to shifting demands, allowing those businesses to achieve competitive advantage by helping them optimize their business in motion.
What could be these shifting demands to change your mind often about the WAN infrastructure on which many other things depend on? The virtual network of the International Stock Exchange traffic, anyone?
Like someone else mentioned, would any Soylentils enjoy playing "The Sims: NOC Edition"?
Previously:
Software-Defined Networking is Dangerously Sniffable [
AT&T Open Sources SDN 8.5 Million Lines of Code - to be Managed by Linux Foundation [updated]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 17 2016, @02:43PM
Sometimes, it's hard to remember a company's roots. But, AT&T is part of the old "Ma Bell" corporation. And, Bell gave us Unix, among other things.
Some history, if you're interested. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/02/12/technology/att-history.html?_r=0 [nytimes.com]
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Sunday July 17 2016, @04:07PM
OK, I'll bite. what does this software do? 8.5 million lines, seems like it would be something important...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 17 2016, @04:43PM
It seems to be all about virtualization, and networking. Kinda cloudish. I don't use it, I don't understand it, but it looks like a pretty big deal. Maybe not as big as Unix, but big anyway.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday July 17 2016, @06:23PM
I suspect the most immediate use of this could be TOR. If they could quickly build a multitude of pipes through a multitude of different routes, and do so on the fly, and change it on the fly it would mean that the only point where tor could be compromised would the first and last mile.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 17 2016, @04:45PM
That is a lot of LOC. The Linux kernel was about that size not too long ago (it's since blown way past, with all the drivers and file systems and whatnot).
Dive right in, guys. Which source file has "main()"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 17 2016, @05:54PM
Dive right in, guys. Which source file has "main()"?
:D
(Score: 2) by martyb on Sunday July 17 2016, @05:01PM
Good question! I dropped the ball on that one. (It was 10pm when I accepted the submission into the story queue, but still you deserve better.) I've updated the story with some more background info and a link to their whitepaper.
This is outside my area of expertise, so I'm hoping there's someone here who can chime in and elaborate on it.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday July 17 2016, @06:30PM
Sometimes, it's hard to remember a company's roots.
True, just ask AT&T. They've forgotten their roots long ago.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 17 2016, @04:13PM
Ah yes, att... The ones who gave the gov a secret closet so they could tap into all comms going through SF (and likely every other city). Now they want everyone to use their software networking code? My trust meter is reading a little low.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 17 2016, @04:49PM
The crowd will find any backdoors in those 8.5 million lines. Let's just hope they are short lines.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 17 2016, @07:36PM
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic. If you're not then I would like to point out that the idea of open source being safe is not true. Backdoors can be hidden in some extremely clever ways. Some are simply intentional bugs, so unless you test an extreme edge case scenario and try to execute the proper functions then it will seem like just a bug. At least they can't just create a backdoor function like they could if it was proprietary, but in 8.5 million lines of code I'm sure it would be pretty simple to hide backdoors.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 17 2016, @05:50PM
Yeah, I wonder what the catch is. Could be surveillance, or could be it's all in COBOL and they didn't want to support it anymore.
(Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Sunday July 17 2016, @06:29PM
The whitepaper says
AT&T owns intellectual property relating to the information presented in this
document. Notwithstanding anything in this document to the contrary, no rights or licenses in or to this or
any other AT&T intellectual property are granted, either expressly or impliedly (sic), either by this document or
the furnishing of this document to you or anyone else. Rights to AT&T intellectual property may be obtained
only by express written agreement with AT&T, signed by AT&T’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) or the CTO’s
authorized designate.
Opensource is not the same as free as in beer or free as in libre. Its a worrisome third category, that doesn't always offer any real benefit.
Its not clear to me just what category this software "gift" falls into, other than it no longer has any competitive value for AT&T.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 17 2016, @07:12PM
Opensource is not the same as [...] free as in libre
Once again, we have people (megacorporations, actually) being purposely deceptive when categorizing things
(like those who named the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.)
M$ and its minions in low grades of media have been doing this a lot lately with M$'s new guy's attempt at a charm offensive
(with M$ saying "We love Linux" while continuing to press bogus patent claims and suing those who use Linux).
Previously, M$ had been more honest, calling their offerings Shared Source (still proprietary, but you can -look- at the code) and Open Core (you still need propriety stuff to made it do anything useful--perhaps even to get it compiled).
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Sunday July 17 2016, @11:18PM
Or worse, if you look at it and implement something similar, do they have enough of a claim to sue or make your company settle?
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Monday July 18 2016, @03:43AM
It isn't even open source then, by the Open Source Definition [opensource.org]. This definition is for all intents and purposes the same as the definition of Free software [fsf.org]. The only difference between the two movements is that the Free Software movement values freedom as a right in and of itself, while the Open Source movement seems to value more the fact that the approach tends to lead to superior engineering, which is incidental to the Free Software movement. This makes the Open Source movement more likely to compromise when it comes to certain things (e.g. the old Linux kernel/Bitkeeper [wikipedia.org] fiasco some years back that eventually led to the development of GIT after the Free Software naysayers were proven right).
That said I'm not so sure that the clause you cite refers to the ECOMP software itself or rather to the document it comes from. It sounds like standard corporate boilerplate legalese that they put in every document they release publicly.
By the way I can't find anything more substantial than the article link, all other coverage about this is the same, probably derived from the same AT&T press release, and I can't yet find an actual source repository where you can get the code and see any licensing details. Strange that not even the Linux Foundation website [linuxfoundation.org] has any word on it, at least not yet (latest news at that link as of this writing dates to July 12, 2016).
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by butthurt on Monday July 18 2016, @05:56AM
Given the involvement of the Linux Foundation, I doubt AT&T would make such a misstep as to deceptively describe the licencing as "open source" if a term like "shared source" would be more accurate. They use the term "open source" accurately when they describe software they've released under the Apache 2.0 licence.
https://github.com/caskdata/tigon/blob/develop/LICENSE [github.com]
If you want to be sure, wait for the Berkeley version.