TM Forum says its open APIs will be included in the next version of the ONAP platform.

Iain Morris, International Editor

May 15, 2018

4 Min Read
TM Forum, ONAP to Meet in Beijing

NICE -- Digital Transformation World 2018 -- The TM Forum has revealed that its open APIs will be included in the forthcoming Beijing release of ONAP, due to arrive in the summer.

The move will unite two major open source initiatives that telcos are pursuing as they wrestle with the digital transformation of their operations and the challenges this presents.

The TM Forum, an industry association, began promoting its open APIs in May 2016 as a way to simplify the development of different service and IT platforms. The idea was to create a set of common "catalog-based" components that operators could dip into.

ONAP, meanwhile, has taken shape as a Linux Foundation project for managing and orchestrating network functions and services. Backed heavily by US telco giant AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), it has been seen as a response to vendor intractability on the development of interoperable, virtualized technologies.

The TM Forum and the Linux Foundation had already announced a formal partnership in March, when the Linux Foundation had said it would use open APIs in upcoming open source projects. (See TM Forum Brings Open APIs to Linux Partnership.)

But more certainty about the immediate plans emerged at this week's Nice-based Digital Transformation World, the successor to the TM Forum Live show of previous years.

Addressing attendees during a keynote presentation this morning, Nik Willetts, the president and CEO of the TM Forum, said: "This year we've been taking the next steps with partners like the Linux Foundation to ensure that the open APIs become part of key open source projects like ONAP. I am delighted to say that open APIs will form a key part of the Beijing release of ONAP in the coming months."

A successor to the first "Amsterdam" release of ONAP, Beijing will focus on developing functional requirements for supporting multiple end-to-end use cases, according to Alla Goldner, the director of technology, strategy and standardization for Israeli vendor Amdocs Ltd. (NYSE: DOX), who previously spoke with Light Reading about the update. (See ONAP Beijing Shifts Focus to Platform, Functions.)

Just as AT&T is ONAP's big telco sponsor, Amdocs has had greater involvement in the project than any other IT vendor. That has fueled concern that ONAP is not as "open" as its proponents make out.

Even so, the meeting of the TM Forum and ONAP in Beijing may help to address some anxiety about the fragmentation of industry efforts on digital transformation. It might also help to boost support for those initiatives.

Want to know more about automation? Check out our dedicated automation content channel here on Light Reading.

Two years ago, the TM Forum had a suite of 18 open APIs and support from nine big service providers, including global giants like Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone. At the time, the organization said its aim was to ensure that 200 service providers globally had adopted the APIs by 2018. (See 9 Global Telcos Back Open APIs Scheme.)

On an initial reading, data suggests the TM Forum still lags this target: A TM Forum representative indicates that 40 service providers and technology ecosystem partners have now signed the open API manifesto.

However, those service providers include large groups with numerous operating companies, says the representative. Willetts also told event attendees that around 54 open API specifications have now been deployed in 66 countries.

In the meantime, the ONAP initiative remains as controversial as ever. Critics say its millions of lines of software code are too big an operational burden. They also question whether it is really an open source endeavor when relatively few companies have contributed code. (See ONAP Takes Flak as Telcos Prep for Release 1.)

It faces competition from another management and orchestration platform simply called Open Source MANO, which is sponsored by ETSI and counts Spain's Telefónica as its chief telco supporter. (See Telefónica Starts Hunt for OSM Integrator Amid Open Source Doubts.)

The availability of two open source platforms addressing the same challenge has generated some confusion and hesitancy in the industry. Globe Telecom of the Philippines is one operator that has yet to make any kind of commitment either way.

"It is not clear whether they are complementary or mutually exclusive," said Vincent Seet, Globe's head of enterprise architecture, in a conversation with Light Reading this week in Nice. "There is definitely an overlap between ONAP and OSM but there are still some differences. We want to know how different they are and then get our hands dirty."

— Iain Morris, International Editor, Light Reading

Read more about:

Europe

About the Author(s)

Iain Morris

International Editor, Light Reading

Iain Morris joined Light Reading as News Editor at the start of 2015 -- and we mean, right at the start. His friends and family were still singing Auld Lang Syne as Iain started sourcing New Year's Eve UK mobile network congestion statistics. Prior to boosting Light Reading's UK-based editorial team numbers (he is based in London, south of the river), Iain was a successful freelance writer and editor who had been covering the telecoms sector for the past 15 years. His work has appeared in publications including The Economist (classy!) and The Observer, besides a variety of trade and business journals. He was previously the lead telecoms analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit, and before that worked as a features editor at Telecommunications magazine. Iain started out in telecoms as an editor at consulting and market-research company Analysys (now Analysys Mason).

Subscribe and receive the latest news from the industry.
Join 62,000+ members. Yes it's completely free.

You May Also Like