LOS ANGELES — MEF Thursday announced the release of a new white paper – “An Industry Initiative For Third Generation Network and Services“ – spearheaded by MEF and co-authored by ON.Lab, ONOS, OPEN-O, OpenDaylight (ODL), the Open Networking Foundation (ONF), Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV), and TM Forum. The white paper describes an industry vision for the evolution and transformation of network connectivity services and the networks used to deliver them. MEF refers to this vision as the “Third Network,” which combines the agility and ubiquity of the Internet with the performance and security of CE 2.0 (Carrier Ethernet 2.0) networks.
Emerging Third Network services are optimized for the digital economy and the hyper-connected world. These services provide an on-demand experience with user-directed control over service capabilities and cloud connectivity. Third Network services are delivered over automated, virtualized, and interconnected networks powered by LSO (Lifecycle Service Orchestration), SDN, NFV, and CE 2.0.
The white paper (1) explores business drivers for Third Network transformation, (2) describes key attributes of the Third Network, (3) explains the LSO-based framework for coordinating all of the moving parts to create Third Network services, and (4) spotlights major work areas that require industry collaboration to ensure orchestrated services operate reliably across multi-operator networks. White paper co-authors have agreed to work together on developing generalized information models, standardized service definitions, comprehensive LSO functionality, standardized open APIs, certification programs for orchestrated services and professionals, and reference implementations for Third Network services and technologies.
“Getting so many important industry players aligned on a shared vision is especially important for developing standardized open APIs that will enable orchestration of inter-provider services,” said Pascal Menezes, CTO, MEF and lead author of the white paper. “Close collaboration will help us realize specifications in code more quickly, test things out in reference implementations, and provide rapid feedback for further spec development.”
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