MEF Announces Two New Specs, New Certification
The MEF today announced the publication of two new specifications aimed at accelerating the arrival of automated networks and more agile services.
The specs are called the Network Resource Management: Information Model, or MEF 59, and the Network Resource Provisioning: Interface Profile Specification, or MEF 60. Both of them stem from the MEF 3.0 Transformational Global Services Framework, which the organization introduced last year.
MEF 59 defines the information model for facilitating the orchestration of Carrier Ethernet connectivity services through wide area network SDN controllers, OTN subnetwork managers, and legacy network management solutions. CenturyLink, Ciena, Cisco, Coriant, Ericsson, Huawei, Infinera, NEC, Nokia, and RAD contributed to this spec.
The other new spec, MEF 60, is an abstracted and intent-based solution to activate and understand the topology of network resources that support MEF-defined services. Contributors to this spec include CenturyLink, Amartus, Ciena, Cisco, Coriant, Ericsson, Huawei, Infinera, Iometrix, NEC, Nokia, and RAD.
“MEF members have been working diligently to develop and demonstrate model-driven ‘North-South’ intra-provider LSO APIs and ‘East-West’ inter-provider LSO APIs that are required to orchestrate MEF 3.0 services,” said Nan Chen, President, MEF. “The new specifications enable us to define the critical LSO Presto NRP (Network Resource Provisioning) API for orchestrating services over a mix of underlying network technologies. We thank the LSO project teams for their diligent work and look forward to also sharing more good news related to inter-provider orchestration in the coming months.”
In other news out of the MEF today, the organization announced new professional certification it developed with ETSI and The Linux Foundation. This new certification focuses on SDN/NFV related skills.
“The MEF-SDN/NFV certification is the newest in a planned family of essential, professional, expert, and master level certifications that comprise the MEF Professional Certification Framework,” said Chen. “Together, these certifications – and the training that programs that underpin them – aim to help service providers and technology companies develop and maintain highly skilled professional workforces in an era of rapid innovation.”
Edited by Maurice Nagle
