Latest OpenDaylight Release Helium Out

OpenDaylight is an open source framework for software defined networking (SDN) that has been gathering steam. The project has released its second open source codebase to the public, dubbed Helium. The previous release, called Hydrogen, came in February.

OpenDaylight is an open platform for network programmability to enable SDN and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) for networks of any size and scale. The goal of the project is to create a common SDN controller, and Helium is the code base that powers the controller.

OpenDaylight is in good position to do for SDN what OpenStack did for cloud. It has increasing support among the biggest vendors in the networking space and an active membership overall with over more than coders and growing. Brocade, Cisco, Red Hat, IBM and Citrix are among the supporters.

That list includes a few companies that have taken the proprietary path when it comes to network management, leading to some skepticism. There is also concern that the framework is not mature enough.

The Helium release is hoped to dispel skepticism, and the project has won over some former holdouts, such as HP, which recently stepped up its support.

There are improvements in the Open vSwitch Database integration project and a technology preview of advanced OpenStack features.

New in Helium is the ability to perform clustering for better failover, as well as enhanced security, authorization and permissions and some general bug fixes. It allows users to manage a network through declarative policies.

Brocade released an OpenDaylight SDN controller called Vyatta earlier this month.

“The momentum behind the OpenDaylight Project is unlike anything else the networking industry has experienced and that is because the customer demand for an open, software-defined platform is louder than ever before,” said Neela Jacques, executive director of the OpenDaylight Project, commenting on Brocade's controller release.