[Case Study] Upgrading a global telecom leader’s SDN platform

Modernizing legacy OpenDaylight dependencies for high availability

When a leading tier-one vendor sought to scale its signature network automation platform, they hit a barrier with their underlying open-source data tier.

Bound to legacy OpenDaylight dependencies, the team struggled with high-availability risks and data persistence bottlenecks that stalled production momentum.

As the largest OpenDaylight contributor, PANTHEON.tech stepped in to embed an on-site expert, audit their architecture, and deliver a detailed migration roadmap to clear the path for high-performance network orchestration.

Project Snapshot

[The Challenge] Navigating architectural gridlock in telco automation

Large telecommunications providers face intense pressure to deliver rapid service innovation, without breaking critical network uptime.

The client's network automation platform relies heavily on OpenDaylight as its core model-driven datastore.

However, as the upstream open-source community advanced, the enterprise's core infrastructure remained entangled in legacy OpenDaylight dependencies.

This introduced significant operational risks. The technical team needed to determine a jump in OpenDaylight versions was required and assess the risks.

More critically, they faced severe architectural questions regarding the existing MD-SAL/Akka persistence frameworks.

In their current forms, these data-tier components could not guarantee the very high scalability support that modern, tier-one global service providers demand. Without a clear path forward, the client risked hitting scalability limits that would impact high-availability and cluster stability in production environments.

Our Approach: Blueprinting a modernized data layer

PANTHEON.tech deployed its team of core upstream maintainers to audit the client's network automation ecosystem. Instead of suggesting a blind code overhaul, we implemented a structured strategy aligned directly with the upstream release train and optimized for rapid execution.

1. Highspeed communication via on-site collaboration

To eliminate the friction of cross-organizational communication, a core requirement of our deployment was the on-site presence of a principal PANTHEON.tech architect.

By putting all key people, product managers, and lead developers in one room, we bypassed traditional corporate communication bottlenecks. This allowed complex technical trade-offs to be resolved in hours rather than weeks.

2. Auditing the platform's current status

With everyone aligned, our next priority was conducting a deep-dive into the current architecture of the client's core software.

We analyzed exactly how the platform interacted with the OpenDaylight datastore layer to discover hidden bottlenecks. By tracking memory footprints, speeds, and thread management, we found the exact boundaries of the existing deployment.

3. Deconstructing MD-SAL and Akka persistence

Our team identified a fundamental mismatch between the client's requirements and the default behavior of Akka persistence within older OpenDaylight versions.

We explicitly pointed out the architectural flaws, where concurrent cluster states risked data fragmentation or deserialization delays under massive loads.

We have actively corrected the client's original approach, by demonstrating that a deeper architectural realignment with modern sharding structures was required.

4. Engineering the roadmaps

We built a dual-phase execution strategy, to give the client immediate relief:

• The short-term (6 Months): Focused on mitigating immediate high-availability risks, stabilizing existing data persistence settings, and prepping the environment for eventual dependency migration.
• The long-term (12 Months): Provided a detailed architectural blueprint for migrating versions of OpenDaylight, ensuring compatibility with future upstream releases.

[The Results] Clear visibility and a fearless path

PANTHEON.tech provided the global telecom leader with the best asset in enterprise engineering - total architectural clarity.

Key Wins Included:

[Business] Accelerated alignment: Maximized communication speed and alignment by establishing a dedicated, in-person war room with a core ODL architect.

[Business] Lifecycle management: Aligned the enterprise's internal product cycles directly with the open-source community’s upstream releases, minimizing future technical debt.

[Technology] Validated high availability: Provided a clear architectural path to eliminate Akka persistence bottlenecks, enabling robust cluster reliability for tier-one operators.

[Technology] Strategic migration: Clearly defined the technical criteria, risks, and massive scalability rewards associated with migrating to the latest OpenDaylight release.

Ready to eliminate legacy tech debt in your SDN infrastructure?

Get in touch with PANTHEON.tech’s core open-source engineers today to design a high-availability, highly scalable roadmap tailored to your platform.