Open Networking Foundation

The Open Networking Foundation (ONF) is a non-profit organization focused on advancing open source software-defined networking (SDN) and disaggregated network architectures. It provides a platform for collaboration and development of open networking standards, reference designs, and open source software projects.

Through federal contract awards, ONF has primarily provided memberships and access to its open source SDN resources. These have included software releases like Stratum, architectural specifications for radio access networks (RAN) and mobile cores, and tooling like continuous integration/delivery (CI/CD) pipelines and automated test frameworks. Contract partners have ranged from The Aerospace Corporation to Stanford University, often involving memberships and utilization of ONF's open source resources. Many of these contracts appear to be in support of open networking initiatives and testbed environments.

A major grant award from the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration involved a $1.96 million project in collaboration with Rutgers University's WINLAB. The goal was to research, develop, and validate test methods for measuring energy consumption and efficiency of 5G RAN and core network components in open, disaggregated architectures. Key activities included developing power consumption measurement techniques, energy efficiency metrics/KPIs, energy consumption models, and methods to assess the effectiveness of energy optimization strategies. Rutgers served as a subrecipient, utilizing their 5G testbed infrastructure and personnel for this research effort.