MEF has published two new MEF 3.0 Ethernet and IP specifications, progressed two major MEF 3.0 SD-WAN projects, and moved closer to finalizing a MEF 3.0 Layer 1 service definition specification as soon as Q3 2018.
These are important steps toward realizing the MEF 3.0 goal of defining, delivering, and certifying agile, assured, and orchestrated services across a global ecosystem of automated networks.
“Expansion of MEF 3.0 standardization work beyond Ethernet to include IP, SD-WAN, and Layer 1 services is critical for enabling the streamlined interconnection and orchestration of a mix of connectivity services across multiple providers,” said Pascal Menezes, CTO, MEF.
MEF has enhanced the family of current MEF 3.0 Ethernet services by publishing the Managed Access E-Line Service Implementation Agreement (MEF 62), which defines a new service with a specific set of management and Class of Service (CoS) capabilities designed to accelerate service provisioning and to simplify management of services that traverse multiple operators. The MEF 3.0 Managed Access E-Line (MAEL) service is derived from the MEF 3.0 Access E-Line service specified in MEF 51.
AT&T, Bell Canada, Canoga Perkins, Ciena, Cisco, HFR and Zayo joined Verizon in contributing to MEF 62.
MEF has published the Subscriber IP Service Attributes Technical Specification (MEF 61) as the first in a planned series of MEF 3.0 IP specifications aiming to address these challenges. MEF 61 specifies a standard set of service attributes for describing IP VPNs and Internet access services offered to end-users and will be used as a starting point for defining attributes for operator IP services.
“The immediate value of MEF 61 is that it establishes common terminology and provides the ability to standardize service level agreements for IP services with customers,” said David Ball, editor of MEF 61 and Senior Software Architect, Cisco.
Albis-Elcon, Ceragon, Ciena, Coriant, Cox, Ericsson, HFR, RAD, TELUS, TIM, Verizon, Zayo and ZTE joined Cisco in contributing to MEF 61.
MEF currently has two major SD-WAN initiatives underway that are aimed to maximize market growth potential: the Multi-Vendor SD-WAN Implementation project and the SD-WAN Service Definition project.
The first project is focused on addressing the rapidly growing problem of orchestrating services over multiple SD-WAN deployments that are based on different technology vendor products. MEF member companies – including SD-WAN vendors Riverbed, VeloCloud (now part of VMware), and Nuage Networks from Nokia and software development services provider Amartus – are collaborating to use MEF’s new, standardized LSO Presto Network Resource Provisioning (NRP) API to meet these interoperability challenges.
In the second project, MEF members are collaborating to develop an SD-WAN service specification that defines the service components, their attributes, and application-centric QoS, security, and business priority policy requirements to create SD-WAN services. This initiative is led by Riverbed and VeloCloud, now part of VMware, with major contributions from Fujitsu.
MEF is in the final phase of the review and approval process for a new specification that defines the attributes of a subscriber Layer 1 service for Ethernet and Fibre Channel client protocols – used in LAN and SAN extension for data center interconnect – as well as SONET and SDH client protocols for legacy WAN services. Nokia, Bell Canada, Cisco, and HFR have contributed to this project.
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