ONLab

ONLab is a collaborative research laboratory focused on advancing networking technologies through open standards, reproducible research, and industry–academic partnerships. Its work spans open software-defined networking, cloud-native infrastructure, optical networking, and network automation, with an emphasis on practical deployment and interoperability across vendor and platform boundaries.

Founded as a joint venture among universities, industry partners, and non-profit organizations, ONLab operates testbeds and facilities that enable researchers and practitioners to design, implement, and evaluate new networking concepts. Projects typically cover programmable networks, software-defined control planes, security for networked systems, and performance optimization for data centers and edge environments.

Through partnerships, ONLab supports open-source software development, standards participation, and educational programs. Researchers contribute to publications, prototypes, and reference architectures intended to accelerate real-world adoption of open networking approaches.

Organizationally, ONLab is governed by a consortium model with member institutions and sponsors providing funding and governance oversight. The lab emphasizes transparent methodology, reproducibility of experiments, and collaboration across disciplines, including computer science, electrical engineering, and statistics.

Impact and collaborations include contributions to open-source ecosystems, demonstrations of interoperable networking stacks, and technology transfer to industry partners and academic programs.