LONDON; Jun. 8, 2017 – Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has joined the Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) as a silver member.

Formed in February 2017 and hosted by The Linux Foundation, ONAP is a collaborative open-source project that enables communications service providers (CSPs), vendors and open-source community developers to collaborate in an open ecosystem, boosting rapid creation of new services and innovation.

“The future health of CSPs’ business lies firmly with the creation of next-generation platforms, software-defined networks and network functions virtualization-powered ecosystems,” said Amol Phadke, managing director for global network transformation services at Accenture. “ONAP brings together various players from across the industry to accelerate the shift from network hardware to network software within a common governance model that allows for orchestration and innovation in a collaborative environment while avoiding fragmentation. We are pleased to be a part of the program to make this transformation a reality.”

Accenture’s participation in ONAP reaffirms its commitment to carrier network transformation and innovation, helping CSPs build next-generation platforms to move from legacy to new business models, develop and launch new services rapidly and at scale, and create and manage real-time operations.

“We have deep experience helping CSPs understand, experiment with, adopt and quickly scale new and emerging technology ecosystems. This, coupled with our work supporting network transformation programs in a technology-agnostic environment and our existing relationship with the Linux Foundation, positions us to help ONAP further differentiate itself as the fastest-growing open-network initiative by collaborating and co-innovating effectively across the ecosystem,” Phadke said.

Arpit Joshipura, general manager of networking at The Linux Foundation, said,

“We are excited that Accenture has joined ONAP, which has to scale to be the successful industry-standard platform for software-defined networks and network functions virtualization. Accenture’s experience co-innovating and building large ecosystems will help us and other ONAP members around the globe create a vibrant community.”