The Open Networking Foundation (ONF) today revealed Ananki, a new corporate entity to push open source-based Software-Defined Private 5G as a commercial service to address enterprises’ unique requirements of Industry 4.0.
Ananki is now delivering software-defined private 5G purpose built for the Industry 4.0 revolution. Ananki’s technological foundation leverages ONF’s open source Aether, SD-RAN, SD-Fabric and SD-Core projects, and melds them together into a commercial offering that is delivered as a SaaS, making private 5G as easy to consume as Wi-Fi for enterprises.
But more importantly, this open platform is hardened and optimised for industrial applications, and introduces developer APIs to empower the creation of more powerful digital transformation solutions, ONF said.
Andre Fuetsch, ONF Board Chair and AT&T CTO, says “ONF continues to innovate in ways that magnify the power of open systems and open source across our industry. The ONF board recognises that the lack of support for open source initiatives from commercial companies remains an inhibiting factor for scaled adoption. To meet this challenge, we have agreed to spin out Ananki as an independent company to pursue commercialisation of Aether with a view that this will help accelerate the adoption and impact of open source.”
ONF’s Aether was selected for the $30M Pronto Project, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) encouraged ONF to commercialise the platform in order to advance the impact of the project’s secure 5G research.
The new entity has been structured as a Public Benefit Corporation to support and promote open source.
