Open Baton

An open source Network Function Virtualisation Orchestrator (NFVO) fully compliant with the ETSI NFV MANO specification

Open Baton [1] is a ETSI NFV compliant Network Function Virtualization Orchestrator (NFVO). Open Baton was part of the OpenSDNCore [2] project started almost three years ago by Fraunhofer FOKUS with the objective of providing a compliant implementation of the ETSI NFV specification.
Open Baton is easily extensible. It integrates with OpenStack, and provides a plugin mechanism for supporting additional VIM types. It supports Network Service management either using a generic VNFM or interoperating with VNF-specific VNFM. It uses different mechanisms (REST or PUB/SUB) for interoperating with the VNFMs. Its initial focus was to provide the main functionalities for provisioning and managing Network Services, however in its future releases new additional features will provide mechanisms for increasing the automation in NS management. Those new features will include autoscaling, fault management, TOSCA, etc.

• Openness: While implementing OpenBaton we have followed as much as possible the ETSI NFV MANO v1.1.1 specification. Interoperability among different vendor solutions is one of the key challenges that OpenBaton is trying to solve. The standard is not yet mature enough, so we believe that providing an open source implementation of the NFVO will support the development of a standardized NFV environment.
• VNFM interoperability mechanisms: OpenBaton supports several VNFM solutions. It provides a generic Virtual Network Function Manager and Element Management System which can be used for managing VNF Packages. It uses different mechanisms for the communication with the VNFMs: either over a message bus using the pub/sub mechanism or using a RESTFul interface. Furthermore we provide a SDK which can be used for building your own VNFM.
• Integration with a multisite openstack environment: Open Baton fully integrates with OpenStack. It uses the OpenStack APIs for requesting virtual compute and networking resources. Following the ETSI NFV specification the OpenStack API is just one of the VIM interfaces implementation. The plugin mechanism implemented allows easily the extension towards the support of multiple cloud systems.

For more information visit the Open Baton webpage [3]!