[OpenDaylight] Vanadium Release is Here

We are excited to see the official release of OpenDaylight Vanadium, the 23rd release of the industry’s most pervasive open-source SDN controller. Vanadium continues to improve network automation, scalability, and performance.

At PANTHEON.tech, we are proud to continue our role as the largest contributor to the OpenDaylight project. Our engineers have once again lead core developments, ensuring that OpenDaylight remains the foundation for mission-critical networking environments worldwide.

Key Takeaways

• Modernized Performance: Vanadium transitions to Java 21, leveraging the latest JVM optimizations and Linux-native networking for ultra-low latency.

• AI-Ready Management: The release introduces native gNMI support, enabling high-frequency telemetry and management of modern network fabrics like SONiC.

• PANTHEON.tech Leadership: As the largest contributor, PANTHEON.tech continues to lead the project’s development and contributions.

What’s New in Vanadium?

OpenDaylight Vanadium introduces several key improvements, designed to meet the demands of high-throughput, low-latency environments:

• Native gNMI Support
  One of the most significant milestones in this release is the successful integration of the gRPC Network Management Interface (gNMI) southbound plugin. Driven by PANTHEON.tech, this addition allows OpenDaylight to manage modern network fabrics using a push-based telemetry model, essential for the real-time monitoring.

• Infrastructure Modernization
  Vanadium remains bound to the latest standards, requiring Java 21 and Maven 3.9.5+. This ensures that the controller benefits from the latest performance improvements and security features of the Java ecosystem.

• Performance Optimization: This release places a renewed focus on Linux/x86_64 as the primary deployment platform. By utilizing Linux-specific optimizations through Netty (such as io_uring and epoll)Vanadium achieves great socket performance and ultra-low latency for BGP and NETCONF communication.

• Core Stability: Further updates to YANG Tools and MD-SAL provide more robust handling of complex YANG 1.1 models, improving the reliability of the controller when managing thousands of network elements.

Enterprise-Ready OpenDaylight

While the community release provides a powerful foundation, enterprise environments often require additional layers of security and support.

PANTHEON.tech provides hardened OpenDaylight distributions tailored for enterprise customers. Our distributions include:

• Long-Term Support (LTS): Stable environments that bypass the aggressive 6-month community upgrade cycles.

• Security Hardening: Immediate remediation of vulnerabilities and rigorous security scanning.

• SLAs: Access to the architects and Project Technical Leads who build the software.

PANTHEON.tech is leading the OpenDaylight ecosystem

PANTHEON.tech remains deeply committed to the success of OpenDaylight. With key leadership roles on the Technical Steering Committee, including Róbert Varga and Ivan Hraško, our team continues to define the architectural standards that power global telecommunications and enterprise networks.

A release of this magnitude is a collective achievement. We would like to extend our sincere thanks to:

The developers and contributors
Your dedication to solving complex networking challenges is what makes this project thrive.

LF Networking (LFN)
For providing the governance and infrastructure that enables open-source collaboration at scale.

The community
For the continuous feedback and testing that ensures each release is better than the last.

For more details on the technical changes and the upgrade path from Titanium, please refer to the official Vanadium Upgrade Process documentation.

Are you looking to modernize your network with OpenDaylight Vanadium? Contact us to learn how our experts can help you deploy a hardened, scalable SDN solution.