LF Networking, a group spearheaded by the Linux Foundation, today introduced what it describes as the first open source platform-as-a-service (PaaS) for 5G network functions. XGVela was donated by China Mobile and has also gained support or interest from China Unicom, China Telecom, ZTE, Ericsson, Nokia, Intel, and Red Hat.

The project aims to enhance general PaaS functions from existing open source efforts for specialized telecommunications requirements. It targets upper layer services as PaaS functions and is designed to enable more cloud deployments among network operators. 

The group is also fusing efforts across its Common NFVI Telco Taskforce (CNTT) and the OPNFV Verification Program in a bid to more holistically address cloud native architecture deployment challenges and specific requirements for mobile carriers. 

“NFV continues to evolve as telcos increasingly adopt cloud native technologies,” explained Heather Kirksey, VP of community and ecosystem development at the Linux Foundation. “Change, however, brings challenges, especially to areas like compliance, testing, automation, and integration.”

CNTT, which was created a year ago, has updated virtual machine (VM) specifications for some workloads with a special focus on containers to achieve consistency across deployments and help minimize challenges. The project is also scheduled to release its third release in early June followed by another release later this year, according to LF Networking. 

“Open source communities provide de-facto standards, open interfaces, and automation tools, which are crucial for NFV adoption,” Xiaodong Duan, director of networks and IT at the China Mobile Research Institute, said in a statement. China Mobile started the world’s largest NFV cloud deployment in 2019, he added.

The OPNFV Verification Program is also expanding to provide support for CNTT architectures by adding testing automation ahead of 5G deployments. The group also created a sub-committee to focus on validating and testing cloud native network functions (CNF) for network operators. 

LF Edge, another organization that sits under the Linux Foundation umbrella, announced the adoption of Open Horizon, a project contributed by IBM, that aims to manage the lifecycle of containerized workloads and machine learning assets. Open Horizon can autonomously manage more than 10,000 edge devices simultaneously, which is 20 times the amount of endpoints managed in traditional offerings, according to LF Edge.

It joins LF Edge’s other projects, including Akraino Edge Stack, Baetyl, EdgeX Foundry, Fledge, Home Edge, Project EVE, and State of the Edge. Following the launch of LF Edge last year, EdgeX Foundry has surpassed 4.3 million docker downloads or roughly 300,000 deployments, and Akraino Edge Stack has released 14 blueprints for various applications.

State of the Edge merged with LF Edge earlier this month and the organization gained a group of new members, including Industrial Technology Research Institute, Kaloom, Ori Industries, Tensor Networks, and VoerEir.