Check out the highlights of the event in the photos below.

There are two principal objectives that Samsung Electronics is currently hoping to accomplish: establishing an open ecosystem with the aim of applying virtualization technologies to carrier-grade networks, and developing network slicing technology for 5G networks. To realize these goals, the company is working to accelerate innovation in the field by encouraging the sharing of knowledge among key figures in the open source community at events such as ONOS BUILD 2017.

At ONOS BUILD 2017, it was announced that ONOS^TM is gaining recognition as being applicable for trial and service usage in telecommunications networks, and that it is solidifying its stance as a critical platform for service providers in network operation. It was also emphasized that community expansion is vital for sustainable growth and technical support.

Professor Guru Parulkar, Executive Director of ONF and a leading scholar in the field of virtualization, gave the keynote speech. A key figure in the establishment of multiple open source communities such as ONOS^TM and CORD^TM, Parulkar has been influential in fostering the development of virtualization technologies such as NFV and SDN.

Sohyong Chong, Vice President of the Virtualization Platform Lab at Samsung Electronics, introduced the company’s virtualization solutions as well as their role in helping networks cope with increased data traffic, and achieving automation of network operation and service agility. He also discussed how these solutions have garnered much attention from telecommunication networks, and how their application scenarios relevant to networks are more diverse, thanks to the increasing number of options such as OpenStack and the Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK).

Chong went on to announce that Samsung will be providing Network as a Service (NaaS) as a software-based open platform, bringing together diverse analytics and automation tools. Through its commercial deployment of open source-based NFV/SDN solutions, he noted, Samsung is securing its position as a leader in the open source community such as ONOS and CORD.

Thomas Vachuska, Chief Architect at Open Networking Foundation, and Uyen Chau at ON.Lab, announced the ONOS^TM roadmap, which is intended to provide information about what is being planned for upcoming ONOS^TM releases and to offer guidance about how developers can help to deliver these items.

A panel made up of the ONOS^TM Technical Steering Team (Sangho Shin, Jonathan Hart, Yuta Higuchi, Brian O’Connor and Thomas Vachuska) took questions from the audience and openly discussed various topics like future agendas, performance in the field and tips to build the community stronger.

Samsung showcased its 5G Network Slicing as well as its 3D SDN orchestrator which enables network operators to toggle in and out network elements, and analyze the root cause of technical problems via intuitive 3D graphical user interfaces (GUI).

A hackathon – an event where programmers collaboratively code in an extreme manner over a day – was another highlight of ONOS BUILD 2017. Teams of developers competed to create a ‘Tap feature’ which is critical to analyze and manage data traffic on a network using a virtualization solution. After two days of coding, the POSTECH team named the winner.

As the second ONOS BUILD following the first in France last year, there will be over 300 participants across the industry, ranging from open source developers and contributors from the academic community to operators and vendors. The annual event will consist of ONOS roadmap, Central Office Re-architected as a Data Center (CORD) as an ONOS use case, a community showcase and Hackathon.

In line with the telecommunications industry’s growing awareness and perception of open source, this year’s event is expected to act as a catalyst that will foster the commercialization of carrier-grade SDN in the global telecommunications market. This is a significant leap from last year’s inaugural event which was organized with the aim of establishing a strong initial foundation for SDN technology.

“The innovation for next-generation will be unleashed by open source communities, and I am confident that ONOS is a key integral part in paving the way for the software-defined architecture,” said Sohyong Chong, Vice President of Virtualization Platform Lab at Samsung Electronics. “Samsung is excited to contribute and connect developers who are fueling innovation to make new visionary challenges into real SDN networks.”

“Since joining the ONOS project in 2016, Samsung has been actively contributing to the development of each release and is working closely with the community to help develop commercial level SDN solutions.” said Guru Parulkar, Executive Director of the ONF. “We are thrilled they volunteered to host this year’s ONOS Build, bring together a large community of developers who have extensive experience working on SDN. Those gathering this week share a keen interest in driving forward the ONOS SDN Controller and associated projects that rely on ONOS. This global effort will help further the work of the ONF and the broad impact we are having on the networking industry.”

Samsung has been involved in the commercialization of virtualized products in cooperation with leading Korean operators and actively working towards the expansion of virtualized solutions such as fully-automated network slicing solution. Samsung plans to hold multiple trials beginning from the end of 2017. More details on the event are available at http://onosbuild.org/.

About ONF

The Open Networking Foundation (ONF) is an operator led consortium spearheading disruptive network transformation. Now the recognized leader for open source solutions for operators, the ONF first launched in 2011 as the standard bearer for Software Defined Networking (SDN). Led by its operator partners AT&T, China Unicom, Comcast, Deutsche Telekom, Google, NTT Communications, Turk Telekom and Verizon, the ONF has now merged operations with ON.Lab to create a single organization driving vast transformation across the operator space. For further information, visit http://www.opennetworking.org/.