The first meeting of ITU-T’s Joint Coordination Activity on Software-defined Networking (JCA-SDN) is set to take place on 11 November 2013 in Kampala, Uganda.
The meeting will be organise in conjunction with collocated meetings of the expert groups leading ITU-T’s SDN standardization work.
The JCA-SDN meeting is being hosted by the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), alongside meetings of ITU-T Study Group 13 (Future networks including cloud computing, mobile and next generation networks), 4-15 November 2013, and Working Parties 1, 2 and 3 of ITU-T Study Group 11 (Signalling requirements, protocols and test specifications), 7-13 November 2013.
SDN was assigned strategic priority by the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA-12) in Dubai, UAE, 20-29 November 2012, which adopted Resolution 77 – Standardization work in ITU-T for software defined networking.
Considered a major shift in networking technology, SDN will give network operators the ability to establish and manage new virtualized resources and networks without deploying new hardware technologies. ICT market players see SDN and network virtualization as critical to countering the increases in network complexity, management and operational costs traditionally associated with the introduction of new services or technologies.
JCA-SDN will report to the Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG) and is charged with coordinating ITU-T’s standardization work on SDN and related technical topics. As such, one of the JCA’s chief responsibilities will be to ensure the alignment of SG13 work on SDN’s functional requirements and architectures with that of SG11 on its signalling requirements and protocols.
The JCA will take into consideration the SDN work of other standards development organizations (SDOs), forums and consortia, and will act as the first point of contact for organizations interested in contributing to ITU-T’s SDN standardization programme.