Supporting Documents
DRAFT FOR DISCUSSION:
Elevator Pitch
Setup
The modern organization has data and users located everywhere. This is impacting the performance and security needs of IT networks across the globe, along with compelling user experiences and new revenue paths - all central to ‘digital transformation’.
Problem/Challenge
Networking technology plays a pivotal role in this digital transformation, among them, three networking transformations will disrupt our planet from 2020-2030: 5G, edge computing, and cloud-native application development. Any one of these disruptions can be overwhelming to comprehend, let alone rapidly and affordably leverage in totality. Inherently, a key challenge is software complexity to implement the full capabilities of these technologies and this is where open source comes into play. Leverage you must: adapt or perish.
Answer
At LF Networking, we firmly believe open-source technology is the only viable path to truly scale software so that businesses, government agencies, education institutions, service providers - and the OEMs, ISVs and system integrators that support them - can achieve operational and revenue value in a timely and cost-effective manner.
Value
We provide the largest set of open-source networking projects - through a broad industry coalition - so the entire world can access networking innovations and achieve digital transformation.
Closer/CTA
Networking digital transformation is a right, not a privilege. We make it so. Join us.
Message Pillars
Speed time to market / streamline development
Key points:
- Service providers can leverage open source to more quickly to support end user needs
- Speed time to market for network services and infrastructure
- Onboard new services more quickly and efficiently
- End users can confidently rely upon community-built, interoperable solutions
Narrative:
Open source has now become the de facto way to build software to speed up software development. Working within the LFN community, developers have access to the broadest set of open source networking capabilities and integration points, with projects spanning Software Defined Networking (SDN), Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), Management and Orchestration (MANO), automation, analytics, data plane acceleration, and more. They can leverage this community-driven work to develop and onboard networking software in simpler, more efficient ways This speeds up time to market for network services and infrastructure. In turn, businesses, service providers and government agencies have the confidence that they can rely on community-built, interoperable solutions to support their end user needs.
Save money / Improve operational efficiency
Key points:
- Simpler, more efficient ways to develop and onboard software
- Avoid unnecessary duplication of common components / technology that companies need
- Reduce vendor lock in
- Interoperability assurance
- Better requirements / testing helps ensure seamless software integration
Narrative:
Operations need to run smoothly and can’t afford costly or time-consuming software upgrades. Working in the LFN community prevents unnecessary duplication of common networking components and technology that companies need to develop and deploy, and provide more vendor choice to reduce lock in. By leveraging work within the community, you gain simpler and more cost-efficient ways to develop and onboard software. LFN’s broad community and years of experience in driving open compliance efforts also offers assurance of interoperability and remove the guesswork to save you time and money. The LFN community is constantly improving both the requirements and the testing against these requirements. Whether you are leveraging a single LFN project building block or a more complete solution stack, the work put in by LFN helps ensure that software is more likely to integrate seamlessly and with less headaches.
Stay cutting edge to drive new revenue opportunities
Key points:
- Open source innovations enable new revenue generating services
- Open source innovations enable operational efficiencies
Narrative:
LFN fosters and incubates networking innovations that have been implemented in communications networks globally and can be used to enable new revenue generating services and operational efficiencies across a range of industries, from retail and healthcare to manufacturing and more. The community is fostering a new wave of open source practitioners across the entire value chain and is an innovation competency that the industry can rely on. LFN projects are also deeply integrated with the edge computing landscape and collaborate with other communities like LF Edge (others?) to add networking capabilities and features to edge blueprints and use cases. With this access innovation, retailers can find new ways to optimize inventory, manufacturers can improve defect detection and connect their factories for real-time decision making, and <insert 1 more from another industry>.
Background on open source
- Software development can be costly and time consuming. As a result, many developers are actively involved in and leveraging from open source communities and open source has now become the de facto way to build software. Developers can tap into a broader ecosystem of ideas and viewpoints to more quickly generate innovations, and to speed up software development. No single company could accomplish what is delivered through an open source community.
- Companies are leveraging open source innovations more frequently in their product and service offerings, contributing to the community and using it to chart their own course in the evolving networking landscape.
- As companies and developers use open source code to build their own commercial products and services, they also gain strategic value in contributing back to those projects. Open source reduces time and optimizes effort, while improving efficiencies and interoperability. Open source communities are also a key driver for building consensus across the industry, filling gaps, and driving adoption by vendors, integrations, end users.
Next steps
- Finalize cross-audience messaging (elevator pitch + pillars) within message working group
- Incorporate relevant security sub-messages and proof points in the pillars. Ask project reps to summarize what each project is doing to drive toward more secure networking.
- Owner: Need owner to gather and consolidate this feedback.
- Review cross-audience messaging in MAC and EUAG for feedback.
- Owner: Lindsey, Neal, Brandon
- Ratify cross-audience messaging at Board meeting
- Owner: Lindsey, Brandon
- Develop audience specific messaging (aligned to cross-audience messaging).
- Owner: Need owners for each audience (vendor ecosystem, network operators, SIs, cloud service providers, enterprise IT)