Broadband Forum automates, accelerates cloud-based access deployment

FREMONT, Calif., Aug. 22, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Broadband Forum today announced the first code release and documentation of its new Open Broadband project – Broadband Access Abstraction (OB-BAA) to enable standardized, automated and accelerated deployment of new cloud-based access infrastructure and services.

What differentiates this Open Broadband reference implementation is that it facilitates co-existence, seamless migration and the agility to adapt to an increasingly wide variety of software defined access models – the key business and operational challenge in creating a potentially vast market.

"OB-BAA enables operators to optimize their decision-making process for introducing new infrastructure based on user demand and acceptance instead of being forced into a total replacement strategy," said Robin Mersh, Broadband Forum CEO. "By reducing planning, risks and execution time, investment in new systems and services can be incremental." 

As a freely-published, open source project, OB-BAA specifies northbound interfaces, core components and southbound interfaces for functions associated with access devices that have been virtualized. It is this standardized, layered architecture designed for SDN automation that distinguishes it from other approaches. It removes the need for difficult deployment planning by decoupling the device and software implementation choices from business and market decisions.

An important and immediate use of OB-BAA is as an integrated layer in the Broadband Forum's CloudCO project, as described in the published 'CloudCO Architectural Framework (TR-384).' OB-BAA also complements other industry initiatives and the work is being actively coordinated with related industry activities such as ONF. 

"The first release of OB-BAA marks a major milestone for the industry," said Tim Carey, Lead Technology Strategist at Nokia and Chair of the Broadband Forum's BAA project. "It delivers an open reference implementation based on standards-compliant interfaces, that operators and vendors worldwide can use to develop and deploy interoperable cloud-based access networks more easily and quickly."

Operators and equipment manufacturers involved in the project include Broadcom, BT, Calix, CenturyLink, China Telecom, Huawei, Nokia, Telecom Italia, Tibit Communications, the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Lab (UNH-IOL) and ZTE.

"OB-BAA is a very important reference implementation of Cloud CO," said Binchao Lin, Access Network Architect at Huawei and VC of OB-BAA. "It is a project which is important to the entire broadband community."

The first of several planned releases, consisting of code and supporting documentation is now publicly available at obbaa.broadband-forum.org/. Companies interested in participating in the ongoing work should contact: [email protected].

In addition to the release, the Forum has published a new OB-BAA system overview paper and is holding a public webinar on Wednesday, August 29, featuring service providers and vendors. For further information and to register for the webinar, please see https://www.broadband-forum.org/baa.

About the Broadband Forum

The Broadband Forum, a non-profit industry organization, is focused on engineering smarter and faster broadband networks. The Forum's flagship TR-069 CPE WAN Management Protocol has now exceeded 800 million installations worldwide.

The Broadband Forum's work defines best practices specifications and software for global networks, enables new revenue-generating service and content delivery, establishes technology migration strategies and service management for the connected home, Cloud, access and 5G broadband ecosystem. There are more than 70 ongoing Technical Committee projects which embrace all relevant emerging technologies.

The Forum's Open Broadband strategy brings together open source agility and standards-based architecture to enable large-scale markets. The Forum develops test interoperability and certification specifications and programs to accelerate deployment.  Visit https://www.broadband-forum.org for free technical reports, papers and videos. Twitter @Broadband_Forum.

For further information please contact Brian Dolby on +44 (0) 7899 914168 or [email protected] or Jayne Brooks on +44 (0) 1636 704 888 or [email protected].

SOURCE The Broadband Forum

Related Links

http://www.broadband-forum.org