XOS provides a framework for operationalizing a collection of disaggregated components. More specifically, XOS defines an Extensible Service Control Plane that provides value in two ways:
It serves as a single unifying OAM interface to a collection of backend services, avoiding the operational silos that otherwise result from disaggregation. This includes a framework for creating and operating on services across organizational boundaries, across a range of implementation choices, and across multiple tenants.
It manages end-to-end service chains across a service mesh, supporting visibility and control at the granularity of individual subscribers or flows. This provides a fine-grain means to correlate diagnostic and monitoring information, allocate resources and isolate performance, and distribute/migrate functionality.
XOS is currently being used in three projects:
CORD Controller: XOS is a central part of CORD (Central Office Re-architected as a Datacenter), providing a coherent service control plane that runs on on top of a mix of disaggregated access technologies, legacy VNFs running in OpenStack VMs, horizontally scalable micro-services running in Kubernetes, and SDN control applications running on ONOS.
Network Edge Mediator (NEM): XOS is being used to provide a mediation layer for SEBA (Software-Enabled Broadband Access), addressing the challenge of how to integrate an edge sites with different (and potentially multiple) global orchestrators and legacy OSS/BSS.
End-to-End Service Chains in a Multi-Cloud: XOS is being used to manage end-to-end service chains that span customer premises, operator edge sites, Internet exchanges, and commodity clouds.
For additional white papers describing XOS, see the project wiki page.
