Open Source SDN: OpenDaylight and ONOS Will Collaborate, Executive Says

The Linux Foundation is sponsoring two open source software-defined networking (SDN) projects with similar goals: OpenDaylight and ONOS. Does that mean a turf war is afoot among open source SDN developers? Not exactly, as OpenDaylight executive director Neela Jacques explained this week in a blog post reacting to the Linux Foundation’s partnership with ONOS.

The Linux Foundation announced a partnership with ONOS, a carrier-grade SDN platform, last week. Although ONOS—which was not originally open source but has been since late 2014—is not exactly the same thing as OpenDaylight, the two projects’ goals are similar. OpenDaylight, which the Linux Foundation has supported since April 2013, develops another SDN platform.

Open source is supposed to be all about preventing redundant programming and saving developers from having to reinvent the wheel. Sponsoring two SDN platforms is not an obvious way to meet those goals.

That’s part of the reason why Neela Jacques explained in a blog post how he sees ONOS and OpenDaylight fitting together going forward. Overall, he wrote, “I believe this move is good for the industry and good for OpenDaylight even though there may be some short-term challenges.”

Yet the blog post also makes clear that there is likely to be at least some tension between ONOS and OpenDaylight in the short term as the projects vie to define exactly where they will place themselves within the open source SDN ecosystem. According to Jacques, OpenDaylight continues to see itself as the “de facto industry SDN and NFV platform.” That’s because it has an established code base, mature governance model and healthy end-user community, he wrote.

Yet Jacques hopes that the Linux Foundation’s endorsement of both projects will create opportunities for more SDN collaboration while also preventing developers from stepping on one another’s toes. “Hosting both ONOS and OpenDaylight under one umbrella allows us to both continue innovating, but also drives us toward greater synergies and ways to leverage each other.”

It’s also likely—although Jacques did not say as much—that ONOS’s focus will center on the telecom industry, since ONOS was born as a collaboration of organizations in that market. OpenDaylight’s broader purview means it will probably lean in other directions and stay out of ONOS’s way.

While the Linux Foundation’s decision to host both OpenDaylight and ONOS isn’t the very best example in history of open source developers working together to avoid redundancy, it’s hardly as bad as a fork or split within the development community. Once the settling is done, both projects are likely to move open source SDN forward in their own ways.