Canonical introduces Charmed OSM to enable telcos with network functions management and orchestration

November 20, 2019: Canonical, the publishers of Ubuntu, today announced Charmed OSM – a pure upstream Open Source MANO (OSM) distribution designed for production-grade, highly available and scalable deployments. Charmed OSM provides telecommunications service providers (TSPs) with a generic approach to network functions management and orchestration, allowing them to benefit from cost reduction resulting from the adoption of network functions virtualisation (NFV) technology.

Charmed OSM is a pure upstream OSM distribution. Telcos are assured of a predictable release cadence and upgrade path as Charmed OSM will be released within two weeks of the upstream, enabling them to benefit from the latest features. Charmed OSM is supported under Ubuntu Advantage to provide critical security patches, 24/7 support and production-grade SLAs for maximum uptime and stability.

“OSM allows TSPs to move from traditional, legacy networking services to cloud-native network functions and benefit from reduced CAPEX and OPEX, and DevOps agility,” said Tytus Kurek, Product Manager for Charmed OSM at Canonical. “However, telcos need an OSM distribution that is stable, secure, supported and easy to operate. Charmed OSM brings all of that together, enabling a smooth transition and painless adoption.”

Advanced OSM deployments and operations are challenging, especially in multi-node scenarios or when certain features such as high availability (HA) are required. By using Charmed OSM, TSPs can reduce deployment times of complex OSM clusters from weeks to hours in an automated process with Juju, the application modelling tool. Juju charms are collections of scripts and metadata which contain all necessary logic required to install, configure and connect applications.

Charms can also significantly simplify daily operational tasks such as upgrades or scale-out the cluster on demand, while native cooperation with other Charmed applications such as Charmed Kubernetes decreases complexity, thereby reducing operational costs. To ensure cluster resiliency and maximise uptime, Charmed OSM can be deployed in an HA mode allowing telcos to meet their availability goal.

“The introduction of Charmed OSM into the market emphasises OSM’s momentum in the telco industry. Charmed OSM, deployed with Juju, fully automates the installation process and drastically simplifies ongoing OSM operations,” said Ramon Armada, NFV Solution Director at Altran. “Altran, an OSM contributor and system integrator, is excited to work with Canonical to drive the adoption  of OSM across tier 1 CSPs globally.” 

To further reduce the complexity and allow TSPs to focus on business value initiatives, Canonical offers a managed service option to remove the operational overheads from telcos. This allows TSPs to transfer the operational risk and allow Canonical to operate their OSM cluster for them.  

Telcos can get started with Charmed OSM by following this tutorial. 

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About Canonical

Canonical is the publisher of Ubuntu, the OS for most public cloud workloads as well as the emerging categories of smart gateways, self-driving cars and advanced robots. Canonical provides enterprise security, support and services to commercial users of Ubuntu. Established in 2004, Canonical is a privately held company.