The Open Networking Foundation (ONF) announced the launch of Ananki, an independent venture-backed company to deliver open source-based, software-defined private 5G as a commercial service. 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 SaaS, making private 5G as easy to consume as Wi-Fi for enterprises, the group said. This open platform is hardened and optimised for industrial applications, and introduces developer APIs to empower the creation of more powerful digital transformation products, the ONF said.
From the inception when ONF’s Aether was selected for the USD 30 million Pronto Project, DARPA encouraged ONF to commercialise the platform in order to advance the impact of the project’s secure 5G research. To date, ONF has operationalised and deployed Aether at 15 locations operating as a cloud managed service.
To accelerate Aether’s adoption, the ONF board voted unanimously to create a new separate venture-backed commercial entity to provide an enhanced, hardened platform so vendors and partners can easily incorporate private 5G into the products they then build and deliver to enterprises.
This new entity, Ananki, has been structured as a Public Benefit Corporation to support and promote open source. Furthermore, Ananki shares common executives with the ONF, ensuring that a consistent vision and mission keeps the two entities well aligned.
The ONF expects its projects will directly benefit from significant additional contributions as Ananki brings more focus, funding, developers and contributions. In addition, Ananki will help grow the ONF ecosystem as it encourages broader adoption of ONF platforms.
