Anuket Messaging Framework

Owned by Brandon Wick
Last updated: Jan 21, 2021
5 min read



Tagline / Mission

Empower the global communications community to deliver reliable and secure network services faster.

Elevator Pitch (30 word)

Anuket delivers standardized reference infrastructure specifications and conformance frameworks for virtualized and cloud native network functions, enabling faster, more robust onboarding into production, reducing costs and accelerating telecom digital transformations.

Elevator Pitch (50 word)

Anuket delivers standardized reference infrastructure specifications and conformance frameworks for virtualized and cloud native network functions, enabling faster and more robust onboarding into production, reducing costs and accelerating telecom digital transformation. The project supports ongoing strategic activities and evaluation of emerging technologies for the Telecom industry.

Elevator Pitch (100 word)

LFN Anuket project was created to enable members from the Telecom communities, operators and supporting companies alike, to mutually develop reference models, standardized reference infrastructure specifications and conformance frameworks for virtualized and cloud native network functions and workloads, enabling faster and more robust onboarding into production, with the goal of reducing costs and accelerating telecom digital transformation. These artifacts include integrated, tested, and validated open software reference infrastructure (including interfaces to hardware) that will be used to design a conformance framework and validation programs. Ongoing strategic activities include collaboration with other standards bodies and evaluation of emerging technologies for the Telecom industry. Leveraging a common infrastructure and participating in a global, open source community and ecosystem is the future of network transformation.

Market Dynamic

The Telecom Industry is in the process of remaking itself as it rolls out 5G and other innovative new services.  Cloud native applications, standardized infrastructure for network functions, and Edge architectures are all needed to support these initiatives. Anuket, formed out of the merger of two Linux Foundation entities, OPNFV and the Cloud iNfrastructure Telco Taskforce (CNTT), is the transformative organization needed to create a common understanding and new capability for infrastructures across the Telecom Industry and to plot our collective future.  To further amplify its mission, Anuket works in partnership with GSMA, other open source communities including ONAP and CNCF, and industry-leading CSPs and NFVI/VNF suppliers in a truly global and collaborative effort.

Value Proposition

Service providers find that network functions require specialized cloud infrastructures. Because of a lack of standardization across the industry, each function may require its own unique infrastructure platform, leading to increased costs, longer onboarding times, more complex operational support requirements, and siloed processes.

Anuket empowers the global communications community by creating a reference cloud infrastructure model, architectures, tools, and programs to deliver network services faster, more reliably, and securely.  

Benefits: 

  • Reduced onboarding time means reduced cost and increased service agility

  • Conformant workloads running on a conformant infrastructure reduces uncertainty

  • All network functions can run on a single, common infrastructure (no combinations)

  • No lock-in; network functions should run on any conformant infrastructure

Artifacts

Reference Model

Reference Architectures

Reference Implementations, Testing and Conformance frameworks

Capabilities (How we deliver on the benefits)

The reference model approach allows vendors and operators in the Telecom industry to work from a single point of reference on how to build infrastructure to support VNFs and CNFs. The documents available are the base for the Reference Architectures and other downstream documents, code, and implementation frameworks. It is also given to the GSMA, which publishes the documents after additional vetting,  as Cloud Infrastructure Reference Model. 

Based on the reference models, the reference architectures are the ones that are common across the Telecom industry, which means that the entire Telecom industry ecosystem will benefit from a common language and set of platform architectures. This allows the operators to focus on building the solutions they need to compete in the marketplace on the basis of their services, not on the platforms and applications that do not deliver direct value to them or their customers.

Flowing out of the reference models and architectures, the reference implementations demonstrate the practicality of reference architectures and enable the development of testing, conformance, and performance benchmarking frameworks. These allow network application vendors to better service their operator customers by focusing on their market differentiators rather than devoting resources to the support of multiple proprietary underlying infrastructures. The infrastructure vendors also will benefit from validating their infrastructure in conformance with the references and can be tested to demonstrate that.

Target Audiences

Network Operators

Network Function Vendor

Infrastructure Vendor

Why should I Invest?

Common service provider requirements are met for both infrastructure and network functions by vendors -- reducing costs by reducing the number of individual clouds and the time to onboard individual functions.

By utilizing conformant infrastructure for your products, you can assure customers that your network functions will deploy and run reliably on their conformant infrastructure.

Alignment with conformant infra improves interoperability and reduces development cost and customization requirements. 

By creating conformant versions of your products, you can assure customers that their network functions will deploy and run reliably.  It also means that you will minimize the level of customized support needed for each application. This project enables collaborative efforts across the Telecom community.

Business Angle:

Telecom operators will benefit from reducing the complexity of maintaining multiple infrastructure platforms, reduced capital expenses, faster buildout intervals, more efficient operations and simpler vendor relations and RFP processes.

Network Function Vendors will benefit from reduced development costs, faster testing intervals and simplified sales cycles coming out of developing their applications and tools on common reference platforms. More ability to differentiate on value added features that customers want rather than supporting proprietary platforms.

Infrastructure vendors will benefit from reduced development costs, simplified testing, and simplified sales cycles with both operators and Network Function Vendors. Conformance allows participants to differentiate on value added features that customers want rather than supporting proprietary platforms.

Operations Angle:

Reducing infrastructure complexity means more efficient operations, simpler processes, more potential for driving NetDevOps automation and improved service delivery.

Fewer platforms to support in the field means more efficient operational support for your Telecom customers.

Less complexity and standardized platforms mean more efficient operational support for your Telecom customers.  

Developer / Architect Angle:

Faster development time because of the reduced need to develop applications for multiple infrastructure platforms. Easier to create simplified application portfolios. Reduced need for testing of compliant infrastructure for field deployments.

Faster development because of the reduced need to develop applications for multiple infrastructure platforms.

By building conformant platforms, the infrastructure vendors can demonstrate to their customers that their systems will work with the network functions that are also conformant, meaning reduced overhead supporting multiple platforms and the need to build multiple custom solutions for their Telecom customers looking for a conformant platform.

Keywords:

Telecom, Reference Model, Infrastructure, NFV, Network Functions, Cloud Native

NFV infrastructure, Telecom, Cloud, CNFs, Containerized Applications, Cloud Native

NFV infrastructure, Cloud, Telecom Cloud, Cloud Infrastructure, Cloud Native