Integrating Whitebox devices in the OB-BAA Framework

OB-BAA provides the following functions and adaptations that are necessary to integrate whitebox access node solutions into a standardized representation of the access node as defined in TR-413:

• SBI adapters that permit a whitebox solution to be managed using standard YANG modules defined in TR-413 for the M_inf reference point and the OB-BAA M_fc-conf reference point.

• Functionality to relay user and control plane packets between the whitebox and the SDN Management and Control Function using the OB-BAA M_fc-relay reference point. Further information on OB-BAA's control plane relay functionality can be found here.

• For OLT whiteboxes, functionality to manage ONUs via OB-BAA's vOMCI and vOLTMF functions. Further information on OB-BAA's management of ONUs can be found here.

Using the standard interfaces and adaptation functionality of OB-BAA, whitebox solutions can co-exist with traditional access nodes, providing a consistent interface between the access nodes and the SDN Management and Control Function, further reducing the cost of operations by removing proprietary solutions needed to manage and control access nodes. Additionally, the risk of introducing new technologies is reduced as OB-BAA provides a path for coexistence and migration between existing traditional elements and whitebox solutions.

Info: The Broadband Forum has on-going work in Working Text WT-451 to standardize the disaggregated management of ONUs. The vOMC support in OB-BAA is based on a functional split and architecture not currently reflected in the current WT-451 draft. The OB-BAA Team will contribute the necessary modifications to the Working Text prior to publication within the BBF. Future releases of OB-BAA are expected to incorporate the updated, standardized elements of WT-451 once the Working Text is published.

Info: The Broadband Forum has started WT-477 to standardize the interfaces between whiteboxes and the SDN Management and Control function including the Control Plane relay.

The OB-BAA Control Plane relay functionality and interfaces have been contributed to be considered for inclusion of WT-477 and future releases of OB-BAA are expected to incorporate the standardized elements of WT-477 once the Working Text is published.

The following diagram depicts the Whitebox's interfaces to the various services that comprise OB-BAA for the whitebox solution:

While the reference points shown in the above figure use the standard adapters from the OB-BAA distribution, the OB-BAA framework is built to easily plug Vendor Adapters that can be used when the interface to the whitebox device (and actually any Access Node design) is vendor specific.

Further information about developing Device Adapters can be found here.

Example OLT Whitebox Solution

The following is an example of a white box solution that uses a system on a chip (SOC) reference implementation (e.g., Broadcom) and BBF open source reference software to provide many of the components to support the standardized and OB-BAA specific M_inf, M_fc-conf, M_fc-relay and M_vOMCI-OLT reference points. The vendor also added support for the TR-413 IPFIX exporter as well as extensions for any vendor specific functions that the vendor provides. The SOC reference implementation provider and vendor supplied extensions (e.g., Altran) are hosted on any whitebox OLT that supports the SOC reference implementation (e.g, Broadcom 6862x and 6865x OLT MAC devices and Broadcom 88470 switch).

Info: Further information about this example's open source SOC reference implementation can be found here.

<–Using OB-BAA