TLC Chair Erica Johnson shares the details of ONF’s OpenFlow® Conformance Testing Program expansion to include non-members.
Are you considering testing your products for OpenFlow® conformance? ONF has just the opportunity for you! Today ONF announced that it is extending the OpenFlow® Conformance Testing Program to non-ONF members. That’s right: companies that are not members of the organization can now use the OpenFlow-conformant logo on products that pass the established testing guidelines. This is great news for the OpenFlow® ecosystem. By broadening the program to include non-members, end users will ultimately benefit as they will have added assurance that the products they purchase are OpenFlow® conformant.
Since launching the program in 2013, ONF has seen great interest from our member companies and has awarded nine products with OpenFlow® conformance. Our list of international conformance testing labs has also grown to include Beijing Internet Institute (BII) in Beijing; China Telecommunication Technology Labs (CTTL) in Beijing; Criterion Network Labs (CNLabs) in Bangalore; Indiana Center for Network Translational Research and Education (InCNTRE) at Indiana University; Network Benchmarking Lab (NBL) of National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) in Hsinchu, Taiwan; and University of New Hampshire InterOperability Lab (UNH-IOL) at the University of New Hampshire.
Now that the testing program has expanded to companies outside of the organization, what are some of the benefits for becoming a member of ONF? I’m glad you asked! When it comes to testing, ONF members are the only ones who can participate in protocol-development, beta, early-release, and pilot testing programs, giving them the upper hand in getting the latest OpenFlow® version into products. ONF member companies are also able to participate in discussion and working groups, attend PlugFests, and develop new versions of the OpenFlow® protocol, among many other benefits. More details on becoming an ONF member company can be found here: https://opennetworking.org/membership-info/.
Receiving an ONF Certificate of Conformance validates the product to a particular version of the OpenFlow® protocol. Vendors are able to earn conformance certifications for products including networking hardware (such as switches and routers) as well as network software, following the completion of the testing process. Having a myriad of SDN products on the market that are OpenFlow® conformant also propels the commercialization and adoption of the standard, benefiting the SDN industry as a whole.
Does your company want to offer customers products that have the highest level of assurance in the OpenFlow® market? Then your products need to carry the OpenFlow® conformant logo! For more details on the OpenFlow® Conformance Testing Program, please visit https://opennetworking.org/sdn-resources/onf-specifications/openflow-conformance. The full listing of OpenFlow® certified products can be accessed here https://opennetworking.org/openflow-conformance-certified-products.
- Erica Johnson, director of the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Lab (UNH-IOL) and chair of the Open Networking Foundation’s Testing Leadership Council
