Hydrogen, the OpenDaylight code release originally scheduled for Monday, Dec. 9, is going to be postponed by a few weeks.
An OpenDaylight spokeswoman didn’t point to any particular cause, but it appears the integration of multiple teams’ code is turning out to be harder than expected — which would be understandable, given that Hydrogen consists of pieces from 10 contributors ranging from big companies (Cisco) to individuals (Brent Salisbury and Evan Zeller from the University of Kentucky).
“There’s no surprise here—anyone working on multi-team projects generally should expect about 30 to 50 percent of the effort per cycle to be focused on integration testing and code conflict resolution,” says Roy Chua, one of SDNCentral’s founders and a partner in Wiretap Ventures. “And this is for multiple teams in an organization with similar coding standards and dedicated resources. ODP is an even more ambitious coordination challenge and given that, they’ve made good progress.”
The stumbling blocks technically haven’t technically been secret. The organization’s conference calls are open to anybody, as are its mailing lists.
One source listed a smattering of problems that were all over the map: lack of documentation, inability to see if the controller is working, concerns about cross-platform Java Virtual Machine (JVM) compatibility (the OpenDaylight controller runs in a JVM), and “potential conflicts between Open DOVE, VTN [virtual tenant networks], and affinities [apparently referring to Plexxi’s contribution].”
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Good coverage Craig. Roy, you got it exactly right, no drama to the slip, just the OpenFlow v1.3 team needing a bit more time and folks want to deliver a proper v1.0 controller. Keep up the great work as usual fellas!