Who should use this guide?¶

OpenDaylight is for users considering open options in network programming. This guide provides information for the following types of users:

1. Those new to OpenDaylight who want to install it and select the features they need to run their network environment using only the command line and GUI. Such users include:
   1. Students
   2. Network administrators and engineers.
2. Network engineers and network application developers who want to use OpenDaylight’s REST APIs to manage their network programmatically.
3. Network engineers and network application developers who want to write their own OpenDaylight services and plugins for greater functionality. This group of users needs a significant level of expertise in the following areas, which is beyond the scope of this document:
   1. The YANG modeling language
   2. The Model-Driven Service Abstraction Layer (MD-SAL)
   3. Maven build tool
   4. Management of the shared data store
   5. How to handle notifications and/or Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs)
4. Developers who would like to join the OpenDaylight community and contribute code upstream. People in this group design offerings such as applications/services, protocol implementations, and so on, to increase OpenDaylight functionality for the benefit of all end-users.