4.1.1 Lifecycle support:

ONAP must support a complete life cycle management of software-defined network functions and services:

4.1.2 Resources, Vendors, & Service Agnostic:

ONAP Platform must be PNF / VNF, Resources, and Service agnostic.  Each service provider or integrator that uses ONAP can manage their specific environment (Resources, PNFs / VNFs,  and services) by creating necessary meta-data / artifacts using Design Studio to support their needs / environment.

4.1.3 Common Information Model approach:

ONAP should define a standardized common information model for complete life cycle management that all vendors must follow.  This will allow ONAP users to quickly onboard and support new resources (xNFs) and/or services.

4.1.4 Strive for Standardization: 

ONAP must strive to support a common approach to manage various network functions from different vendors and provide vendor clear guidelines for vendor to follow:

4.1.5 Integrated & Centralized Catalog:

All meta-data / artifacts required by various ONAP components should be designed from a central ONAP design studio, cataloged and shared from central repository.

4.2.1 Policy Driven Automation:

ONAP should support high levels of automation at every phase of lifecycle management – e.g. onboard, design, deployment, instantiation, upgrade, monitoring, management, to end of life cycle.  These automation should be policy driven, allowing users to dynamically control automation behavior via policy changes without recompiling ONAP code.

4.2.2 Model Driven:

All ONAP components (SO, AAI, etc) should be model-driven, avoiding, where possible, programming code (Model driven APIs and model driven behavior).  This allows for a catalog-based reusable repository for network & services lifecycle management.

4.2.3 Self-Service & User Focused:

ONAP Platform should support a self-service model with a fully integrated user-friendly design studio to design all facets of lifecycle management (product/ service design, operational automation, etc.). All interfaces and interactions with ONAP should be user friendly and easy to use.

4.2.4 Integration Friendly:

When an ONAP component relies on software outside of the ONAP project, the dependency on that external software should be designed to be pluggable, API-oriented, supporting multiple possible implementations of that dependency.

4.2.5 Cloud Agnostic:

 ONAP platform should be able to run and support multiple cloud environments (simultaneously), including container environments like Kubernetes and other Cloud Native technologies.

4.2.6 Backward Compatibility:

Every new ONAP platform release should support backward compatibility with at least one previous release a described in the ONAP Common Versioning Strategy.

4.3.1 Microservices:

ONAP modules should be designed as microservices: service-based with clear, concise function addressed by each service with loose coupling.
Support extensive use of microservices as a means of supporting (a) loosely-coupled agile development, test, and deployments, (b) runtime scalability, resilience, and decreased footprint, and (c) feature reusability

4.3.2 Shared Services:

Where applicable, reusable components can be provided as shared services across ONAP components.

4.3.3 CI / CD Support:

ONAP is predicated on an accelerated lifecycle for network services.  As such, agility is key in all aspects of ONAP:  development of ONAP, designing of network services, and operation of both ONAP and network services.  Principles of continuous integration and deployment should be followed by all modules of the ONAP platform.

4.3.4 Integration Friendly / Standard API:

Various service providers and users of ONAP should be able to quickly integrate ONAP with their existing OSS / BSS systems. An open, standards-based architecture with well-defined APIs fosters interoperability both within ONAP and across complementary projects and applications

4.3.5 Layered Software Abstractions:

Define ONAP as a layered architecture similar to the OSI model for the internet. ONAP will have an orchestration layer, multi-cloud layer, and application control and lifecycle management layer.  These layers interface with each other using defined abstract interfaces between the different layers to support information and request flowing between the layers in an implementation-independent manner.

4.3.6 Platform System Data Model:

Defines an abstract data model of the objects and entities to be managed by ONAP.

4.4.1 Cloud Environment Support:

All components in ONAP should be virtualized, preferably with support for both virtual machines and containers.  All components should be software-based with no requirement on a specific hardware platform.

4.4.2 Scalability:

ONAP must be able to manage a small set of xNFs to highly distributed, very large network and service environment with millions of managed resources deployed across the globe.

4.4.3 Availability & Resiliency:

ONAP must support various deployment and configuration options to meet varying availability and resiliency needs of various service providers.

4.4.4 Security:

All ONAP components should keep security considerations at the fore-front of all architectural decisions.  Security should be a pervasive underlying theme in all aspects of ONAP.  The ONAP architecture should have a flexible security framework, allowing ONAP platform users to meet their security requirements.

4.4.5 Platform Plumbing:

Identifies areas of commonality and implements reusable solutions that can be used to support generic needs such as (a) resiliency and traffic control, (b) observability, (c) security, and (d) data persistence, alleviating the burden of this on the module developers, and speeding up the process accordingly.

The ONAP footprint should be reasonable compared to the size of the managed network. ONAP should support a minimal footprint configuration as an entry level networks. The size of ONAP should not be an inhibitor for end user adoption. Large   managed networks may require larger deployment footprint.

ONAP must provide flexibility to deploy only selected component to meet user's scope and allow incrementally add components as scope increases (e.g. design and deploy basic resources / services, Add application level configuration and lifecycle management, and finally add service assurance functions using DCAE and Policy).

4.4.7 Runtime Independence from Internet:

ONAP must be runnable in a completely private environment with no routing to Internet. This effectively means that any runtime downloading of libraries, definitions and resources from the internet is prohibited and everything must be packaged to the images of the ONAP installation package.