Summary Bullets:
• CE 2.0 certified services form the foundation for “Third Network” connectivity services, enabled by emerging Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO), SDN, and NFV technology solutions.
• Some 55 service providers, to date, have earned CE 2.0 service certification, with 16 added in 2015, showing that aside from the march to SDN/NFV utopia, fundamental service delivery remains king.
Using the MEF’s upcoming Gen15 networking event in Dallas as a backdrop, it is obvious that vendors and operators alike continue to see the merits of obtaining CE 2.0 service certification in order to deliver on fundamental Ethernet services. Not only are vendors and operators spending the resources necessary to obtain certification, but they are also actively engaged in the upcoming Gen15 event. During 2015, trials and PoCs involving NFV and SDN are clearly moving to the very real beginnings of deployment – this is where the value of CE 2.0 really begins to shine. Not only can operators continue to offer an industry standard set of Ethernet services (E-LAN, E-Line, E-Tree and E-Access), but now with the added agility that is promised by NFV implementations (e.g., CE 2.0 as a virtual network function [VNF]), and with broad industry cooperation, customers can also expect that these more dynamic services will continue to be interoperable across vendor platforms and across multiple operators.
Earlier in September the MEF announced that it had enlisted 50 service provider and vendor sponsors and had signed up 23 media partners for its GEN15 event. Given the apparent competition for vendor and operator resources, this breadth of participation demonstrates the perceived importance of the event. We have often noted the multiple standards and industry organizations that are working to establish industry best practices and implementations for SDN and NFV (e.g., OPNFV, OpenDayLight, OpenStack and others), but when it comes down to the authority for standardizing carrier Ethernet services, the MEF continues to stand tall.