RtBrick throws in with TIP's Open BNG project
This article was published in Fierce Telecom on January 12, 2021. You can read the original article here
RtBrick announced on Tuesday that it's now supporting the Telecom Infra Project's Open BNG initiative. Open BNG is a new standard that was created by the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) to develop open, disaggregated broadband network gateways.
Open BNG develops standards for equipment that operators can deploy in current and future networks in order to deliver fixed broadband services. To date, Telefónica, Deutsche Telecom, BT, and Vodafone have driven Open BNG
Open BNG is a subset within TIP’s Open Optical & Packet Transport (OOPT) Project Group’s Disaggregated Open Routers (DOR) sub-group. The goal of the Open BNG project is to develop solutions that overcome some of the issues that operators face when deploying fixed access services to a wide-range of customers
Traditional carrier routing systems have been delivered as monolithic systems, with integrated hardware and software. The legacy systems are hard to automate and lock carriers into a different platform for each service they deliver. The Open BNG calls for separation of hardware and software, along with open interfaces that are easier to control from external systems.
In tandem with software-defined networking (SDN), separating the BNG control plane from the data plane enables operators to centralize the management and control of a routed network. Other benefits include centralized locations for IP address management, all of which can be scaled up or down according to customer demand.
RtBrick said its BNG software was the first use-case of its FullStack IP/MPLS routing software, which is aligned with the Open BNG architecture. It runs as a software container on a Linux operating system on open hardware, with programmable REST-based APIs that expose all of the attributes of the router to north-bound systems.
"This is a really important initiative for the telco industry,” said Pravin S Bhandarkar, founder and chief executive officer at RtBrick, in a statement. “Our customers want to create ‘cloud-native’ networks, with open programmable interfaces, and deliver services on software that runs independently from its hardware. This is exactly what the TIP members have defined in the Open BNG initiative and completely aligns with our own vision for disaggregated telco networks.”
RtBrick is one of the vendors working with Deutsche Telekom on the its Access 4.0 program. Deutsche Telekom is making a move towards a disaggregated network for both its fiber and legacy networks through its Access 4.0 program.
Additional vendors participating in the Access 4.0 ecosystem, which includes chip makers, virtual routing companies and white box vendors, include Barefoot Networks, Intel, Edgecore Networks, Radisys, and Broadcom.