NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) and NEC Laboratories Europe today announced the development of the world’s first interface supporting the Open Networking Foundation’s (ONF) recently established “Real Time Media Northbound Interface (NBI) REST Specification,” which allows real-time media (RTM) network applications, such as unified communications, to offer a better overall experience to the end-user by interacting with the software-defined networking (SDN) controller via northbound interfaces.
Specifically, NEC Laboratories Europe produced a proof of concept interface in accordance with the ONF specifications established in March 2015. The proof of concept uses SDN controllers supporting NEC’s Virtual Tenant Network (VTN) interface (e.g. open-source OpenDaylight (www.opendaylight.org) or NEC’s ProgrammableFlow), which control a mininet (www.mininet.org) emulated network of OVS (www.openvswitch.org/) softswitches. The newly developed VTN-based RTM network service is now freely available to the open-source community through the ASPEN project at ONF’s www.opensourcesdn.org.
NEC’s Confidence In Its ONF Interface
“Open and standardized northbound interfaces are a vital component for the growth and success of the SDN ecosystem,” said Fabian Schneider, Senior Researcher at NEC Labs Europe and Deputy Area Director of the ONF Services Area, which includes the northbound interfaces specification and open-source projects. “The real time media NBI is a first step towards removing the burden for networked application developers to support and integrate with multiple SDN controller frameworks and architectures.”
The VTN-based RTM network service interface will be showcased at the Layer123 SDN & OpenFlow World Congress from 12 – 16 October 2015 at the Swissotel Dusseldorf, Germany as part of the ONF booth.
About NEC Corporation
NEC Corporation is a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies that benefit businesses and people around the world. By providing a combination of products and solutions that cross utilize the company’s experience and global resources, NEC’s advanced technologies meet the complex and ever-changing needs of its customers. NEC brings more than 100 years of expertise in technological innovation to empower people, businesses and society. For more information, visit NEC at http://www.nec.com.
Based on its Mid-term Management Plan 2015, the NEC Group globally provides “Solutions for Society” that promote the safety, security, efficiency and equality of society. Under the company’s corporate message of “Orchestrating a brighter world,” NEC aims to help solve a wide range of challenging issues and to create new social value for the changing world of tomorrow.
