The Optical Internetworking Forum and the Network Processing Forum have agreed to merge their organizations under the OIF banner.
The merger, which is expected to be finalized in June, builds on common areas of technical work, interests and membership base.
Launched in April of 1998, the OIF seeks to advance the standards and methods of optical networks. Its member base includes carriers, component manufacturers and system vendors. Founded in 2001, the NPF is a consortium of networking semiconductor, software and OEM manufacturers focused on development and implementation of network processing standards and benchmarks.
Fourteen of the NPF’s 30 member companies are among the 109 OIF members. It also follows several years of working together, including colocated events as well as formal liaison activities.
The combined forum will be led by the current OIF board. The NPF board will serve as an ad hoc advisory committee. Board elections for the new entity will be held in August and a new board will take office in October.
OIF President Joe Berthold, vice president of network architecture and standards for Ciena Corp., said the merger reinforces the long-term cooperation of the optical and data parts of the communications industry encouraged by the OIF by extending it to interoperability and benchmarking of internal software and hardware components. OIF has more traditionally focused on box-to-box interoperability. Working down at the individual software elements, Berthold said, will provide interoperability at a greater level of depth.
“This offers the flexibility to use network processors and software from any manufacturer,” explained NPF Chairman Chuck Sannipoli, vice president and general manager of the network processor group at IP Infusion Inc.
Post-merger, NPF’s technical committee, software working group and benchmarking group will remain intact, Berthold added. The NPF’s hardware working group will be merged in the OIF’s Physical Link Layer working group.
Sannipoli said, structurally, the merger will not be challenging since the NPF modeled itself on OIF’s bylaws and the two organizations are managed by the same association management company, Association Management Services.
Among the advantages of the merger for NPF initiatives is their exposure to service providers and systems vendors.
“If those groups were aware of what we were working on, it would help adoption of the Implementation Agreements,” he said.
Network Processing Forum www.npforum.org
OIF www.oiforum.com
