Foundation Appoints Principal System Architect; New Project Builds on OF-CONFIG to Support Open vSwitch
PALO ALTO, Calif., February 11, 2015 – The Open Networking Foundation (ONF), a non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating the adoption of open Software-Defined Networking (SDN), continues to expand its work in open-source software development. The foundation today announced the appointment of Saurav Das as principal system architect, and the establishment of a new project to build upon the OpenFlow® Configuration and Management Protocol (OF-CONFIG) to support Open vSwitch (OVS). Saurav’s contributions to ONF and the announcement of this project build on the organization’s open-source software efforts that began with the OpenFlow® Driver competition, followed by ONF SampleTap and the Segment Routing project SPRING-OPEN, all of which were completed in 2014. Open-source software is a key route to developing de facto standards and fostering interoperability, both of which are ONF goals.
As Principal System Architect, Saurav brings deep SDN and networking software expertise to support new ONF development projects, working with ONF’s CTO and Software Leadership Councils. Saurav has worked with the organization for the past year as a consultant and lead of ONF’s SPRING-OPEN project. SPRING-OPEN developed an open-source segment-routing prototype, built on Dell’s Open Networking switches and ON.Lab’s ONOS controller. For further information about SPRING-OPEN, a video is available at http://youtu.be/NDtFpIOKG2k.
“Open-source resources provide a tangible foundation from which the industry can quickly implement SDN, rapidly increasing the speed at which open SDN can be leveraged by end users,” said Das. “With this understanding, ONF is placing increased emphasis on open source. Stay tuned – much more is coming from the organization in 2015.”
Additionally, ONF will collaborate with the Czech Education and Scientific NETwork (CESNET) to provide support to OF-CONFIG throughout this undertaking. For additional information about OF-CONFIG, please visit https://opennetworking.org/images/stories/downloads/sdn-resources/onf-specifications/openflow-config/of-config-1.2.pdf.
“ONF views open-source software as a critical step in the path to global open SDN adoption for components that do not require vendor differentiation, and building on our work in this space is crucial to meeting the needs of the networking ecosystem,” said Dan Pitt, executive director of the Open Networking Foundation. “We established the position of Principal System Architect to help oversee the organization’s overall software efforts, and it was pivotal that the individual we selected bring a strong pedigree in SDN architecture and software development to the role. I’m excited to welcome Saurav to the team.”
Saurav’s background in SDN can be traced back to his doctoral research at Stanford University. Under the direction of Professor Nick McKeown (a member of the ONF Board of Directors), he was part of the research group at Stanford that gave birth to SDN as we know it. His work developed a converged IP/MPLS/Optical WAN architecturally founded on SDN and OpenFlow. Post-graduation, he worked as part of the engineering team at Big Switch Networks, investigating SDN platform scalability in large data center networks. Saurav holds a master’s degree from the University of Arizona and a PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
About ONF
Launched in 2011 by Deutsche Telekom, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Verizon, and Yahoo!, the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) is a growing nonprofit organization with more than 140 members whose mission is to accelerate the adoption of open SDN. ONF promotes open SDN and OpenFlow® technologies and standards while fostering a vibrant market of products, services, applications, customers, and users. For further details visit the ONF website at: https://opennetworking.org.
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