By Tapio Tallgren
We’ve just issued the latest iteration of the OPNFV platfor
m, OPNFV Colorado 3.0. While the initial Colorado 1.0 release was a major milestone, the work on Colorado did not stop at the release. Colorado 3.0 has 19 scenarios, including one new one. There are updated installation images for three installers, including updates for both x86 and ARM. And as with earlier versions, Colorado 3.0 has a choice of SDN controllers, different virtual switches for fast packet processing, and for using network features such as Service Function Chaining (SFC) and BGPVPN.
Releasing Colorado 3.0 involved a lot more than just copying the Colorado 1.0 installer images and documentation to the server. One of the biggest opportunities these update releases provide is the opportunity for different OPNFV projects to implement bug fixes (both from the upstream projects and to enhance their own code base). However, what might seem like a “simple” change in one line of code is actually much more complicated; it involves testing of that code with different installers and with different combinations of projects.
To get an idea of the complexity of what goes into each release–whether a milestone release or a point release–visit this page on the OPNFV wiki. It lists all the different scenarios and their testing status for the Colorado 3.0 release. Each combination of an installer and related feature project is as a “scenario” that needs to be tested. There are currently seven different testing projects that test different aspects of the scenario across two different hardware architectures (Intel x86 and ARM).
To tame this complexity, considerable focus has gone into OPNFV’s continuous integration (CI) system to make running theses tests and reporting the results much easier. While there is still work to be done, updated results can be found here. What you’ll find is that Colorado 3.0 presents an even more solid foundation for NFV applications and services. We encourage the community to start working with Colorado 3.0 and share any feedback on the OPNFV Users mailing list.
Meanwhile, we’re hard at work on the next major OPNFV release, Danube, which is expected in 1H2017. More about that later! On behalf of the TSC, I wish you happy holidays and a happy new year.