Today, the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) announced that ONF's Aether 5G
Connected Edge Cloud platform is being used as the software platform for the
$30M DARPA Pronto project, pursuing research to secure future 5G network
infrastructure.
DARPA is funding ONF to build, deploy and operate the network to support
research by Cornell, Princeton and Stanford universities in the areas of
network verification and closed-loop control. ONF will enhance and deploy its
open source Aether software platform as the foundation for the Pronto research
work, and in turn the research results will be open sourced back into Aether to
help advance Aether as a platform for future secure 5G network infrastructure.
Aether - 5G Connected Edge Cloud Platform
Aether is the first open source 5G Connected Edge Cloud platform. Aether
provides mobile connectivity and edge cloud services for distributed enterprise
networks as a cloud managed offering. Aether is an open source platform
optimized for multi-cloud deployments, and it simultaneously supports wireless
connectivity over licensed, unlicensed and lightly-licensed (CBRS) spectrum.
Aether is a platform for enabling enterprise digital transformation
projects. Coupling robust cellular connectivity with connected edge cloud
processing creates a platform for supporting Industrial Internet-of-Things
(IIoT) and Operational Technology (OT) services like robotics control, onsite
inference processing of video feeds, drone control and the like.
Given Aether's end-to-end programmable architecture coupled with its 5G and
edge cloud capabilities, Aether is well suited for supporting the Pronto
research agenda.
Aether Beta Deployment
ONF has operationalized and is running a beta production deployment of
Aether. This deployment is a single unified cloud managed network
interconnecting the project's commercial partners AT&T, Ciena, Intel,
Google, NTT, ONF and Telefonica. This initial deployment supports CBRS and/or
4G/LTE radio access at all sites, and is cloud managed from a shared core
running in the Google public cloud.
The University campuses are being added to this Aether deployment in
support of Pronto. Campus sites will be used by Pronto researchers to advance
the Pronto research, serving as both a development platform and a testbed for
use case experimentation. The Aether footprint is expected to grow on the
university campuses as Aether's 5G Connected Edge Cloud capabilities are
leveraged both for research on additional use cases as well as for select
campus operations.
Aether Ecosystem
A growing ecosystem is backing Aether, collectively
supporting the development of a common open source platform that can serve as
an enabler for digital transformation projects, while also serving as a common
platform for advanced research poised to help unlock the potential of the
programmable network for more secure future 5G infrastructure.
"At Google Cloud, we are working closely with
the telecom ecosystem to help enable 5G transformation, accelerated by the
power of cloud computing. We are pleased to support the Open Networking
Foundation's work to extend the availability of 5G and edge capabilities via an
open source platform." - Shailesh Shukla, VP and GM, Networking, Google Cloud
"Cornell is deploying Aether on campus to bring private 5G/LTE
connectivity services with edge cloud capabilities into our research
facilities. We expect private 5G/LTE with connected edge cloud to
become an important and integral part of our research infrastructure for many
research and operational groups on the campus. We also see the value
of interconnecting a nation-wide leading infrastructure with Stanford,
Princeton and ONF for collaborative research among university researchers
across the country." - David Lifka, Vice President for Information Technologies and CIO, Cornell
University
"Princeton University is deploying Aether on campus in the
Computer Science Department in order to support the Pronto research agenda and
offer it as an experimental infrastructure for other research groups. This
deployment will enable private 5G/LTE connectivity and edge cloud services and
will complement https://p4campus.cs.princeton.edu/.
We plan to also explore how some of our mission critical production use cases
can be supported on a private 5G Connected Edge Cloud." - Jay Dominick, Vice President & CIO, Princeton University
"Ciena is pleased to be an early collaborator on the ONF's Aether
project. We have an Aether site running in our 5G lab in Montreal,
and we are excited by the prospect of helping enterprises leverage the 5G and
edge cloud capabilities of Aether to help build transformative solutions." - Stephen Alexander, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer,
Ciena
"Intel is an active participant of the ONF's innovative Aether
project to advance the development of 5G and edge cloud solutions on high
volume servers. ONF has been leading the industry with advanced open source
implementations in the areas of disaggregated Mobile Core, e.g. the Open Mobile
Evolved Core (OMEC), and we look forward to continuing to innovate by applying
proven principles of disaggregation, open source and AI/ML with Aether, the
Enterprise 5G/LTE Edge-Cloud-as-a-Service platform. As open source, Aether will
help accelerate the availability of innovative edge applications. Aether will
be optimized to leverage powerful performance, AI/ML, and security
enhancements, which are essential for 5G and available in Intel® Xeon® Scalable
Processors, network adapters and switching technologies, including Data-Plane
Development Kit (DPDK), Intel® Software Guard Extensions (Intel SGX), and
Intel® TofinoTM Programmable Ethernet Switch." - Pranav Mehta, Vice President of Systems and Software Research, Intel Labs
Learn More
The Aether ecosystem is open to researchers and other potential partners
who wish to build upon Aether, and we welcome inquiries regarding
collaboration. You can learn more at the https://aetherproject.org/ and
the Project
Pronto.