cloudCO - SDN/NFV function unbundling in access devices (m/f)

Background

The AGORA platform is Altice Labs' solution that allows the management of Altice Labs' access network equipment. With the growing trend towards the adoption of the SDN/NFV paradigm has been growing the adoption of technologies that enable automation and agility in the development of new functionalities and services. These technologies include YANG, gRPC, Google Protocol Buffers (GPB) and NETCONF. In addition, at equipment level there has been a migration from more monolithic solutions with proprietary software, to modular solutions, with open and virtualised software. Traditional equipment is separated into simpler units in a function disaggregation logic.

Project Objectives

The main objective of this project is to contribute to the development of new components necessary to support an unbundled OLT (Optical line termination) (D-OLT), namely:

Support of protocols such as NETCONF, gNOI (gRPC Network Operations Interface) and gNMI (gRPC Network Management Interface).

Collaborate in the implementation of VNFs (Virtual Network Functions) and respective communication agents with the equipment.

Innovative Aspects

Docker

SDN/NFV

gRPC, gNMI, gNOI

NETCONF/YANG

Go Language

Tools to use

Docker, Java, Go, C/C++, NETCONF/YANG, gRPC

Bibliographic References

Introduction to CloudCO (http://www.broadband-forum.org/technical/download/Introducing_BBF_CloudCO.pdf)

gRPC - https://grpc.io/

gNMI - https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/101/materials/slides-101-netconf-grpc-network-management-interface-gnmi-00

gNOI - https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/101/materials/slides-101-rtgwg-sessa-grpc-services-on-network-devices-00

RFC 6241 - Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF) (https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6241)

The YANG 1.1 Data Modeling Language (https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7950)

Activities

Study of the current architecture of access networks, including technologies and types of equipment

Study of the new generation architecture based on SDN/NFV principles

Study of NETCONF, gNOI and gRPC protocols and YANG modelling language

Study of tools for code generation from YANG models

Prototype implementation for equipment management via NETCONF, gNOI and gRPC

Presentation/demonstration of the solution

Key Skills Required

Use of Linux and Shell scripting

Programming C/C++, java, Go

Telecom networks and protocols

Software engineering

Willingness to learn