ONF

The Open Networking Foundation (ONF) is a nonprofit industry alliance that promotes open networking and software-defined networking (SDN). Founded in 2011, ONF coordinates collaboration among telecommunications operators, hardware and software vendors, and research institutions to advance open, interoperable networking technologies.

ONF's work centers on developing and promoting open interfaces, standards, and reference implementations that enable programmable networks. It has championed the OpenFlow protocol as a foundational SDN southbound interface and supports a range of open-source and open-standard projects, testbeds, and interoperability efforts designed to accelerate adoption of SDN in data centers, carrier networks, and enterprise environments.

Governance and membership: ONF is governed by a board of directors drawn from its member organizations. The foundation operates through technical committees and working groups that address areas such as data plane, control plane, orchestration, and platform interoperability. Membership is open to organizations aligned with ONF's mission, and participants contribute through specifications, pilot deployments, and shared reference implementations.

Impact and context: ONF has been influential in early SDN standardization and in fostering industry collaboration around open networking. It collaborates with other standards bodies and open-source projects in a broader ecosystem that includes data-center networking, network automation, and cloud-native networking.

See also: OpenFlow, Software-defined networking, NFV.