OpenDaylight, a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project building an open source software-defined networking (SDN) and network-functions virtualization (NFV) platform, is closing out the year with the addition of a major new industry partner to the initiative in the form of Intel.

Intel will be joining OpenDaylight as a platinum member, which entails offering significant financial backing for the project. In addition, Uri Elzur, SDN System Architecture Director at Intel, will become part of the OpenDaylight board, while Rajeev Koodli, Architect at Intel, will join the project’s Technical Steering Committee.

OpenDaylight, which launched about eighteenth months ago, already enjoyed backing (and funding) from a number of big-name companies, such as Microsoft, Cisco, IBM and Red Hat. But the organization is celebrating the Intel announcement as an important step toward speeding real-world adoption of its open source, standards-based SDN platform.

“The year ahead will see increased adoption and deployment of OpenDaylight-based SDN controllers,” said Neela Jacques, executive director, OpenDaylight. “Intel has been actively engaged in working with partners on a broad spectrum of technologies critical to the successful deployment of SDN and NFV and will imbue a new vibrancy in the OpenDaylight community.”

The Intel news is the latest major update from OpenDaylight since the project issued its second software release, Helium, in September.