Requirements:

Control and management of container-based VNFs (CNFs)
Re(usability) to the greatest extent possible for code, functions, plugins (components), APIs, development patterns, development patterns
Architecturally layered
VPP and Linux Kernel dataplane support
Modularized so developers can use(re-use) software plugins (like Go packages)
Developer - friendly with documentation, tutorials, examples and libraries
Programming language developed for speed, efficiency, ease of use and broad community support with an extensive suite of libraries
Agnostic to control/management platforms including K8s
Implemented in running code. No better way to prove feasibility than in real networks.

Solution: Ligato

Ligato is an open source framework for developing solutions for managing and controlling CNFs or really any kind of microservice-based application. Reusable software components (dubbed plugins) with the accompanying documentation, tutorials and examples are supplied to facilitate development. A set of VPP-specific plugins including a configuration scheduler are packaged into a VPP agent enabling separate microservices, other plugins and/or processes and applications to manage and configure VPP-based CNFs. Ligato employs Golang as its programming language for the performance, concurrency, scale and broad community support necessary for developing and implementing network functions inside containers.

Ligato Framework