Anuket Project

2019 Goals - LFN SPC

Owned by Trevor Cooper
Last updated: Sept 11, 2019 by Frank Brockners

Purpose of this page is to provide OPNFV feedback to the LFN Strategic Planning Committee (SPC). The charter of the SPC as well as other details about membership and working materials can be found here: LFN SPC Wiki

The SPC has an advisory role towards the Governing Board (GB). It prepares LFN strategy proposals to guide the LFN portfolio including its budget priorities for GB discussion and approval. It also provide guidance to the LFN projects according to the strategy set by the GB.

SPC Questions to LFN Projects.

Note that "project" here refers to an LFN portfolio project ... e.g. OPNFV community. The OPNFV TSC should roll up feedback from OPNFV contributors and provide a consolidated view of OPNFV needs and priorities to the SPC.

This was discussed in the TSC meeting and sent out to the OPNFV  community on 16 July 2019. Link to email thread can be found here: <opnfv-tech-discuss@lists.opnfv.org>.  Some ways to provide input are ...

  • Respond to the tech-discuss mailing list 
  • Attend the weekly technical forum - this will be an agenda topic over the next few weeks
  • Provide feedback directly (email or schedule a call) with OPNFV SPC rep. Trevor Cooper
  • Provide feedback directly with a TSC rep. who has agreed to represent your input to the TSC
  • Attend future TSC meeting where this will be discussed (not currently scheduled)


Some general feedback from the initial TSC discussion on the questions and process ... 

  • SPC is very new so developers need help to better understand the mission and objectives … this will inform context of the questions
  • Most developers are focused on concrete issues and generally not thinking strategy … feel they are being hit with very open-ended high level questions and and not clear on the expectation from SPC
  • Put some bounds on responses, start "tops down" with guidance and ideas to get the conversation going, for example ... 
    • for each question create scenarios to guide responses
    • pose multiple choice example answers (last one should always be open)
    • For each question give references / pointers e.g. “bearing in mind SPC goal is xyz, what do you think about y” e.g. a few summary bullet points as reference or guide to context of that question.


Questions: 


1. How would you like the SPC to communicate with OPNFV (method, frequency, etc.)?

  • Should mostly be through OPNFV appointed rep (Trevor Cooper). The rep should give updates in TSC meetings (whenever there is anything new or significant and periodically report status of SPC work)
  • If rep thinks its important invite SPC chair or other appropriate person to attend a TSC meeting for a deep dive and to hear directly from TSC members
  • Communication should be 2 way i.e. also from TSC to SPC.
    • OPNFV contributors can approach the OPNFV rep to represent their ideas/concerns directly to the SPC (i.e. not via the TSC)
    • For important issues invite TSC chair and/or other TSC members to attend SPC meeting
  • Ways to report progress which should be visible
    • Agree metrics or indicators for OPNFV to report progress towards community objectives
    • Progress towards objectives should be both ways (LFN/SPC/OPNFV) and mechanisms for this mutually agreed between SPC and OPNFV. 


2. What are the three top areas where you feel your project should focus and invest? (Examples:  Growing the community, infrastructure improvements, gaining adoption)

  • CNTT ... reference implementations and compliance frameworks, etc.
  • Serve and grow the community
    • Grow awareness of OPNFV work and making sure we are delivering what carriers need. 
    • Collaborate with vendors and all stakeholders to ensure we are focused on areas of importance to them.
    • Track use of OPNFV artifacts (infrastructure, test cases, etc.) both with upstream communities and commercial entities.
    • Convince member companies to invest and prioritize developer resources
    • When considering new projects for LF, avoid direct competition with existing ones (like OPNFV).
  • Refocus what we deliver and refresh tools
    • Modularity, loosely couple components, re-usable components: We’ve had two types of deliverables in the past: Scenarios (as “fully tested integrated solution stacks”) and Tools (to conduct that testing). While scenarios have been the focus, it is tools that have survived. Functest, NFVbench, Barometer, Dovetail, … If those would have been even more generic and reusable, we’d have greater reach.
    • To achieve Modularity, encourage the various tools to evolve toward more common architecture. Defining an OPNFV target architecture would help, in areas where agreement is possible.
    • Evolve to modern tool chains – cloud based solutions which are easy to leverage and replicate.
  • Drive closer collaboration between LFN projects and communities – drive community building around sub-projects which are naturally associated, e.g. for OPNFV that would be OPNFV – ONAP Integration, MultiVIM/Cloud, etc.


3. What community asks have not been completed in a reasonable and timely manner?

  • Replacing the PM (now solved)
  • Organizing a developer event an Kubecon 
  • Infra support in different time zones. Currently, if something breaks while the US is sleeping, we need to wait around 5 hours for a response. Given that more than half of the community is not in the US this seems a fair thing to ask. LFN was going to hire somebody in Asia, did that happen?
  • Modernize the OPNFV infra. even though we put aside significant budget for that
  • Other?


4. Strategic relationships and interaction with other Projects (inside and outside LFN)

  • Which projects are up and/or downstream for your project?
    • OpenStack
    • ODL
    • TF
    • Kubernetes
    • OVS
    • VPP
    • DPDK
    • etc.
  • What collaboration / interaction with other projects is working well?
    • OpenStack
    • Openstack Edge Computing Group
    • Airship (re. CNTT)
    • ODL
    • OSM collaboration with SFC (currently not active)
    • other?
  • What collaboration / interaction (existing or desired) with other projects is not working well or is a gap?
    • Akraino
    • ONAP
    • TF
    • other?
    • In general, collaboration with all other LFN projects is poor in practice, i.e., anything beyond high-level discussions
  • What collaboration / interaction would your project benefit from that is not already happening?
    • CNTT/GSMA (spinning up)
    • Akraino
    • ONAP
    • TF (switch performance tools)
    • Kubernetes networking - Multus, DanM, Calico, etc.
    • other?
  • How do you suggest improving collaboration / interaction with other projects?
    • Collaboration must be a natural fit and mutually beneficial to work
    • Education as to benefits of collaboration (specifics)
    • Cross-TSC presentations
    • other?
  • How/What should we drive for collaboration with projects outside LFN that would be beneficial?
    • Open source software (OSS) (examples:  CNCF, LF Edge, Hyperledger, Openstack, ONF, etc.)
      • CNCF, OpenStack, LFEdge (Akraino, ...)
      • other?
    • Standards Development Organizations (SDOs) (examples: O-RAN, ETSI NFV, GSMA, 3GPP, ETSI ZSM, etc.)
      • GSMA (CNTT)
      • ETSI NFV - TST WG (testing methodologies for CNTT)
      • ETSI-OSM
      • other?
    • Analytics, ML, AI: Collaborating with LF-Deep would be beneficial to OPNFV
    • Other? 


5. Would a more integrated solution approach increase or accelerate a more effective adoption of LFN technologies?

  • Question needs clarification, there are 2 different types of responses ... 
    • more integration of LFN technologies is good and so more integration is the way to go
    • Close integration is not the way to get broader interest and reach. Small re-usable and easily composable pieces is what quite often gives you reach. That way, people can grow their own solutions based on OSS components. Tightly integrated systems lead to a situation where it either “fits your needs” or “does not fit your needs” – and the latter is more common. Look at Unix. Unix is a tool box of loosely coupled components that can easily be combined. OPNFV could be more a tool box for composition and testing than an effort to build the one and only stack.
  • OPNFV has been an integration project and is uniquely positioned for LFN technologies to be integrated and tested together
  • OPNFV could become the "shop window" for LFN technologies
  • Initiatives with important industry goals like CNTT should naturally result in more integration between LFN projects. This is a preferable way to increase industry adoption.



6. The LFN TAC made recommendations on increased efficiencies for LFN project infrastructure. (Link:  Infrastructure Working Group Summary Report)  Are there other areas of project operations that you would like to see the TAC look into?

  • Release planning
  • Tracking milestones and visibility of projects
  • The TAC should consider what value it adds and help the community understand it
  • Common tools across projects helps – like linked Jiras etc. TAC is the appropriate body to prepare for those decisions
  • other?


7. Is commercial compliance (OVP) relevant to your project? If yes then how does your project plan on contributing?

  • Yes
  • OPNFV developed OVP including governance and process framework (CVC), test framework (Dovetail) and test tools / test cases (Functest, Yardstick, etc.)
  • OPNFV is contributing to LFN level compliance program (NFVi and VNF compliance) through Dovetail and LFN compliance committee
  • If OVP expands its scope to CNTT reference-implementation validation, OPNFV has bigger role to play in terms of performance testing
  • From an FDS perspective, OVP is not immediately relevant. OVP might use NFVbench moving forward (as part of CNTT)


8. Do you have an activity lifecycle framework within your project?

  • If yes, do you feel it is benefiting the project?
    • Yes. https://www.opnfv.org/software/technical-project-governance/project-lifecycle
    • Incubation to mature does not provide any real benefit at a project level
    • Archived does provide benefit 
      • gives sense of accomplishment as recognizes project achieved its mandate and project goals 
      • communicates community progress to broader community
    • What about lifecycle of OPNFV in general?
      • How to know if successfully reached mandate?
  • If  no, do you feel that formalizing one is necessary?


9. Does your project need help to focus on highest priorities?

  • OPNFV needs to attract more developers back to the community as most code commits are contributed by few developers
  • Need strong messaging to create interest and communicate OPNFV relevance to broader community as the work refocuses
  • Make case for member companies to invest development resources (campaign to reinvigorate through marketing and direct relationships with stakeholders and member companies)

  • I don’t think OPNFV needs help to “focus”. OPNFV needs attention, proper marketing, and increased contributions.


10. Is there a question that we missed that we should have asked but didn't?

  • ???