Canonical, which controls the Ubuntu Linux distribution, is using carrier interest in OpenStack as a powerful route into a new market, and into the heart of telco SDN. Its Ubuntu Server dominates the OpenStack operating system sector (it powers 65% of large deployments) and that is taking it into the mobile world as more and more MNOs see OpenStack as the simplest and most well-supported framework for managing their virtual network functions (VNFs). It is essential to interoperability and operator confidence that the management and orchestration (MANO) of virtual networks, with their huge numbers of dynamic moving software parts, are standardized. There are two major open source efforts in this area which incorporate several former inhouse operator projects – Open…