TelecomTV at MEF16 - Nan Chen, President, MEF; Vice-Chairman, CENX discusses four major areas of MEF work that will enable agile, assured, and orchestrated Third Network services for the digital economy and the hyper-connected world. This includes (1) orchestrated connectivity and NFV-based services, (2) the LSO (Lifecycle Services Orchestration) architecture with standardized open APIs, (3) open initiatives involving collaboration with other industry organizations, and (4) the evolution of certification programs for services, equipment, and professionals.  Nan highlights that the organization’s most important work currently is focused on enabling end-to-end orchestrated services across multiple technology domains and multiple service providers globally and seamlessly. Development and deployment of Third Network services powered by LSO, SDN, and NFV will require broad industry collaboration.  Along these lines, MEF has co-authored a groundbreaking new Third Network services white paper with ON.Lab, ONOS, OPEN-O, OpenDaylight (ODL), the Open Networking Foundation (ONF), Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV), and TM Forum.
 
Download new white paper "An Industry Initiative for Third Generation Network and Services" (November 2016).

Many more MEF16 videos can be found here.

TelecomTV at MEF16 – Michael Strople, Chairman, MEF; President, Zayo Managed Services & Managing Director, Canada, Zayo discusses the MEF’s role in driving industry transformation with agile, assured, and orchestrated services.  Mike notes that MEF is a member-driven organization, and the Third Network vision has been developed based on the needs of members that include 210+ service provider and technology vendor companies.  Mike highlights the importance of LSO (Lifecycle Service Orchestration) open API work, open networking, and industry collaboration. What makes MEF a key player in driving innovation? Mike explains, “MEF is much more than a standards group. People ask me if MEF is a standards body. We issue specifications. That’s true. That’s an important part of what we do. But we do so much more than that. I like to say that MEF is a collaboration platform, and MEF is where ideas get traction.”  | 4:44 Minutes

Many more MEF16 videos can be found here.

TelecomTV at MEF16 – Panel interview with senior MEF representatives: (1) Shahar Steiff, VP, New Technology, PCCW Global; Director, MEF; Technical & Operations Committee Co-Chair, MEF; (2) Pascal Menezes, CTO, MEF; and (3) Raghu Ranganathan, Principal & Distinguished Engineer, Office of CTO, Ciena; MEF Distinguished Fellow; Director, MEF; Technical & Operations Committee Co-Chair, MEF. Pascal explains that MEF's concept of open networking centers on LSO open APIs (North-South and East-West) that can be used with either open source or closed source solutions. Shahar emphasizes the importance of using Open APIs to automate service lifecycle processes within and between service providers, leading to increased efficiency. Raghu notes that service providers can introduce greater agility in operating their networks by creating an abstract view of their networks that allows them to use open APIs to program the network.

... Raghu elaborates, "If you generally ask the question of open networking, it's not just about open hardware, but it is also about open software working together via these APIs. That is the most critical puzzle you need to solve." In addition to increased operational efficiency, open networking will allow service providers to transition from a hardware-centric view to a software-centric view, where services can be created in software in almost real-time as the customer demands. This requires a cultural change on the part of service providers and will enable customers to have much greater control over service capabilities. As Pascal explains, MEF has introduced a number of open initiatives, including OpenLSO and OpenCS (Open Connectivity Services) reference implementations, to help accelerate LSO development and deployment. Shahar summarizes MEF's approach as (1) standardizing service definitions, (2) standardizing operational processes, (3) standardizing  orchestration, and (4) creating the open initiative reference implementations that provide feedback to accelerate LSO development. Shahar notes, "MEF is probably the only organization in the industry that handles all four together."  | 17:33 Minutes

TelecomTV at MEF16: Josh Goodell, VP, AT&T Network On Demand - Over the past year, AT&T has expanded its Network On Demand portfolio beyond Switched Ethernet to included Managed Internet and NFV-based FlexWare services with the goal of giving customers greater agility, flexibility, and control. Since its launch in 2015, more than 2,000 businesses have signed up for AT&T Network on Demand solutions, including more than 1,300 for Switched Ethernet with on-demand capabilities. AT&T has rearchitected its entire core network -- leveraging SDN and orchestration technologies -- to meet the demands of video traffic and is now utilizing that network to deliver differentiated services. Switched Ethernet and Managed Internet services are core services going out to the network edge, while FlexWare is an edge service. Josh explained FlexWare: "What we're doing is taking the traditional approach of proprietary boxes out on the edge of the network and really turning that model on its head. And so what we have now is a model where customers will have a single device on the edge that can run multiple functions on that device - whether it be routing, WAN acceleration, security -- and they can dynamically choose what functions they want." SD-WAN is tied into the FlexWare service. 

Josh elaborated on AT&T's SDN interoperability trial with Colt Technology Services and the importance of MEF LSO (Lifecycle Service Orchestration) work. "One of the elements of MEF that is really is interesting is their concept of LSO. One of the core tenants is helping us expand the value of SDN and NFV not just within one carrier space but across carriers. And the work with Colt is a great example of how we are expanding the value proposition of an SDN network - that SDN core that I talked about earlier -- really across the world. And with this Proof of Concept, we demonstrated that it's possible to have endpoints in the United States and endpoints in the UK all federated with one network connection. And that's very unique. So, we're excited to not just be talking about this stuff. We're actually out there making it happen."

Josh summarized AT&T's journey in 3 phases: (1) rethink how AT&T delivers network services over a rearchitected core network, (2) deliver new agility, flexibility, and control value to customers with Network on Demand, and (3) drive the industry forward by expanding upon these new approaches and principles. "We think there's value not just for us, but for the industry. I think MEF is a conduit. They're a catalyst for that. One of the reasons we're so excited is that we see complete alignment with what we're trying to do and what MEF is trying to do, and we'll work closely together on this." | 7:31 minutes.

Many more MEF16 videos can be found here.

TelecomTV at MEF16 – Marc Halbfinger, CEO, PCCW Global discusses why his company has been among the first to embrace SDN, NFV, and LSO and has played a leading role in MEF to help drive LSO development and adoption.  PCCW Global is especially interested in creating LSO-related commercial interfaces to handle the new generation of dynamic Third Network services that are orchestrated across multiple providers.  “Now we are headed to a bandwidth-on-demand, dynamic environment where the commercial parameters are no longer two-dimension. They are three-dimensional and perhaps even more. We have to be able to create wholesale infrastructures for commercial settlement between carriers for bandwidth, for bandwidth variations by destinations, by applications, by services. We’ll be looking at network flows and other various activities. We’ll be looking to see what are the new units of currency that transpire wholesale between and among networks to support end-users.”  Marc challenges the industry: “It is time, first and foremost, that physical networks assure that on-demand, software-based infrastructure can be transacted on a wholesale basis in order to give customers the breadth of every global network that may exist. And secondly, that the physical ecosystems also learn how to sensibly interconnect commercially with the cloud players to give the customer a singular experience.”  Marc elaborates, “If we are able to wholesale commercial settlements, it will open up network infrastructure to end users far more aggressively and will incent, perhaps, the advent of greater applications than can be developed over common networks.”

Many more MEF16 videos can be found here.

Accedian won the CE 2.0 Technology of the Year Award in the 2016 MEF Excellence Awards program, in part, for the company’s work related to performance assurance.   | 8:01 Minutes

Many more MEF16 videos can be found here.

TelecomTV at MEF16 – Chris Purdy, CTO, CENX discusses the challenge of assuring services across combined physical and virtual networks within a single provider and assuring services that are orchestrated across multiple providers.  Chris notes that essentially every major service provider is moving in the direction of implementing NFV in their network in order to have virtualized implementations of what traditionally would have been purpose–built hardware.  While a lot of industry attention has focused on creating virtual machines and spinning up virtual network functions (VNFs), up to now not nearly as much energy has gone into assuring virtual network services once they are turned up. Chris notes that MEF’s work promoting development of East-West LSO APIs is critically important for orchestrating and assuring services among service providers on a global scale.  As for CENX itself, the company’s service assurance solution involves taking in real-time data from the network, mapping that against the topology of network domains, and then feeding information back into the orchestration and fulfillment systems to effect network changes within that controlled loop  | 8:37 Minutes

Many more MEF16 videos can be found here.

TelecomTV at MEF16 – Andy Mayer (Principal Member of Technical Staff, Domain 2.0, AT&T and editor of the MEF 55 LSO Reference Architecture), Dawn Kaplan (Solutions Architect, CoE OSS Architect, Ericsson; Co-Director, Operations Area, MEF) and Donald Hunter (Principal Engineer in CTO Office, Cisco) provide an overview of the MEF’s 3rd LSO Hackathon and explain the importance of the Hackathon work in accelerating the development of Lifecycle Service Orchestration standards and seeing them delivered in open source projects.  A key goal of the LSO Hackathon is to test out early implementations of developing LSO specifications and to provide feedback to the standardization process about what does and does not work before standards are finalized. This is key part of MEF’s more agile specification development process that has been implemented over the past year.  This MEF16 Hackathon included development activity related to East-West APIs supporting interoperable services between operators. Two specific Hackathon projects included serviceability and ordering.| 16:06 minutes

Many more MEF16 videos can be found here.

TelecomTV at MEF – Joe Cumello, VP of Portfolio Marketing, Ciena offers advice for customers on the best way to go about combining LSO, SDN & NFV to drive business transformation. Joe addresses the importance of LSO, the open networking phenomenon being driven by service providers, and the paradigm shift from 100G/200G to 400G optical networking.  Joe highlights that customers are asking not just for greater capacity, greater density, lower power, and lower cost per bit but they are also looking to gather greater intelligence from their optical networks to help them make automation choices.  Capacity + automation and intelligence will be the currency in the network going forward.   | 8:01 Minutes

Many more MEF16 videos can be found here.

TelecomTV at MEF16 – Eric Cevis, President, Verizon Partner Solutions discusses what the industry must do to address customer needs in the era of hyper-connectivity.  Eric emphasizes the importance of collaboration and MEF work on developing standards that support interoperable services that are orchestrated over more automated and interconnected networks. Verizon strongly supports MEF’s Lifecycle Services Orchestration initiative. Verizon is investing in software tools to enable greater self-service capabilities and in the buildout of its fiber network to take the benefits of next-generation solutions to more customers. | 7:15 Minutes

Many more MEF16 videos can be found here.

TelecomTV at MEF16 - Travis Ewert, Senior VP, Global Network Software Development, Level 3 Communications explains how customer usage of on-demand services has evolved since the company first began offering dynamic capabilities several years ago.  What started as a single pain of glass – or one-stop shop user interface – for the customer has evolved to become more of a customer defined network with the introduction of programmability.  Programmability, for example, allows a customer to schedule service changes or tie changes to analytics. “They can actually pick a segment of their network and say when utilization does this, do this for me.”  These new capabilities have been well-received by customers and changed the dynamic of the customer relationship. The ultimate goal is to provide a feedback loop into SDN, orchestration, and control to “allow the network to make a change on your behalf based on how you define your experience.”  Looking at the industry more broadly, Travis advocates that MEF will need to work not only only on East-West APIs for control of orchestrated services across multiple operators, but also the exchange of data analytics and intelligence over consumable APIs.  | 6:55 Minutes

Many more MEF16 videos can be found here.

MEF16 Keynote – Pascal Menezes, CTO, MEF discusses major work to enable Third Network services for the digital economy. This includes (1) development of orchestrated connectivity (wavelengths, CE 2.0, IP) & NFV-based services (security and other), (2) development of the LSO (Lifecycle Services Orchestration) architecture and standardized open APIs, (3) open initiatives with OpenLSO and OpenCS (Open Connectivity Services) reference implementations, and (4) the evolution of certification programs for services, equipment, and professionals. Pascal is leading MEF’s effort to be a more agile development organization that collaborates closely with open source projects and other industry organizations.  He also spearheaded the creation of a new white paper that MEF has co-authored with ON.Lab, ONOS, OPEN-O, OpenDaylight (ODL), the Open Networking Foundation (ONF), Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV), and TM Forum. | 28:01 Minutes

Download presentation here. 

Download new white paper "An Industry Initiative for Third Generation Network and Services" (November 2016).

Many more MEF16 videos can be found here.

TelecomTV at MEF16 – Andy Mayer (Principal Member of Technical Staff, Domain 2.0, AT&T and editor of the MEF 55 LSO Reference Architecture), Dawn Kaplan (Solutions Architect, CoE OSS Architect, Ericsson; Co-Director, Operations Area, MEF) and Donald Hunter (Principal Engineer in CTO Office, Cisco) provide an overview of the MEF’s 3rd LSO Hackathon and explain the importance of the Hackathon work in accelerating the development of Lifecycle Service Orchestration standards and seeing them delivered in open source projects.  A key goal of the LSO Hackathon is to test out early implementations of developing LSO specifications and to provide feedback to the standardization process about what does and does not work before standards are finalized. This is key part of MEF’s more agile specification development process that has been implemented over the past year.  This MEF16 Hackathon included development activity related to East-West APIs supporting interoperable services between operators. Two specific Hackathon projects included serviceability and ordering.| 16:06 minutes

Many more MEF16 videos can be found here.

Industry progress in advancing Third Network innovation was on display in MEF16’s vibrant Proof of Concept Showcase, which featured 14 leading-edge demonstrations of orchestrated services enabled by LSO, SDN, NFV, and CE 2.0. Two groups of innovators received this year’s coveted PoC Awards: (1) Comcast Business, Sparkle, Tata Communications, ECI, and Viavi Solutions and (2) CenturyLink, Ciena, and RAD.

Industry progress in advancing Third Network innovation was on display in MEF16’s vibrant Proof of Concept Showcase, which featured 14 leading-edge demonstrations of orchestrated services enabled by LSO, SDN, NFV, and CE 2.0.

MEF16 Keynote by Chad Haggerty, Senior Director of OSS Systems, Comcast – The digital customer and software-based network technologies require transformative changes to business processes and ecosystems. SDN, NFV, and cloud-based networks enable dynamic, real-time customer-controlled services. Digital customer growth is driving the customer experience deeper into the connected ecosystem. The customer, in effect, is becoming more and more involved in business processes of service providers. Back office systems are being called upon to manage and dynamically control more of the network and to drive more business efficiency and automation in order to handle the scale, increased complexity, and on-demand capabilities. Going forward, back office systems will have more direct customer interactions with a digital economy. A key takeaway quote – “Say goodbye to time” as the expectations of the on-demand customer come into the mix. Providers no longer have the luxury of a long cycle time to update inventories or fix anything that might go wrong. | 16:06 minutes

MEF16 Keynote by Michael Strople, Chairman, MEF; President, Zayo Managed Services & Managing Director, Canada, Zayo discusses how MEF is leading industry efforts to enable agile, assured, and orchestrated Third Network services over more automated networks. The Third Network vision work builds upon the foundation of a $80 billion global market for Carrier Ethernet services and technologies and is enabled by LSO (Lifecycle Service Orchestration), alongside SDN and NFV. | 5:48 minutes

MEF16 Keynote by Nan Chen, President, MEF; Vice-Chairman, CENX - Two years ago, MEF launched its vision to enable Third Network services optimized for the digital economy and the hyper-connected world. Warmly received by many top service and technology leaders across the globe, the Third Network concept combines the agility and ubiquity of the Internet with the performance and security assurances of CE 2.0. Third Network services provide an on-demand/agile, assured, and orchestrated experience with user-directed control over service capabilities & cloud connectivity. These services are delivered over automated, virtualized, and interconnected networks powered by LSO, SDN, NFV, and CE 2.0. This keynote will provide a progress report on major initiatives – including collaboration with numerous open source projects and industry standards organizations – that are turning the Third Network vision into reality. | 20:13 minutes

MEF16 Keynote by Josh Goodell, Vice President, AT&T Network On Demand – In this keynote, Josh provides a progress report on AT&T’s network transformation and new innovative services  that are enabled by service orchestration (LSO), SDN, and NFV.  AT&T has seen about a 50% reduction in network provisioning time across the board (inclusive of the time it takes to build fiber to customer sites).  Once a customer has a connection, AT&T is able to provide changes to its on-demand services within seconds.  Josh shares how on-demand services (Ethernet, Internet, NFV-based) and a new SD-WAN offering are providing increased agility and flexibility for customers. | 18:55 minutes

Download presentation here.

MEF16 – Marc Halbfinger, CEO, PCCW Global sits down for an interview with Nan Chen, President, MEF - Marc shares that service providers are being driven to think differently about how they deliver solutions to address changing customer requirements in the cloud era. He notes that PCCW Global has supported the work of MEF because of the coalition of players the organization has brought together to focus on driving the thought processes around service and technology innovation. It is particularly important that we have strong industry collaboration as we shift from hardware-centric thought processes to a software-centric approach. Marc notes that MEF’s Third Network vision is critical to moving the industry forward.

What do we need to do next? Marc challenges industry players to consider the implications of the shift to software-based applications or feature sets that can be rapidly introduced. MEF’s LSO Reference Architecture deals with how different networking environments meet between the physical layer and the software layer. LSO technical standards need to developed more aggressively with commercial (profit/loss) thought processes in the mix. The key is to collaborate across a technical standard that facilitates collaborative commercial thought from a domestic ecosystem to an international ecosystem. Marc also emphasized that it is very important to prioritize a collaborative approach to network security. | 20:38 minutes

Charles Eckel, Developer Evangelist, Cisco DevNet provides an overview of the MEF16 LSO Hackathon that is taking MEF's specification work and putting it to code. The exercise carries out implementations of the specs to validate that they work.

Greg Spear, Solution Manager, Accedian Networks describes his company's joint Proof-of-Concept demonstration with CenturyLink focused on ensuring customer quality of experience for advanced network services.  The PoC demo conducted at MEF16 focused on test & turn-up as well as performance monitoring at Layer 2 and Layer 3.  The PoC is built on the principles in the MEF 33 specification. 

Michael Kearns, Vice President Open Source Ecosystems, Huawei, discusses how networking priorities and roadmaps will evolve to support digital services. He notes that orchestration must be able texploit network virtualization and provide agility to operators, and a key to doing this is having an open networking environment. The increasing adoption of open networking, coupled with OSS integration, are underscoring a series of changing customer requirements within the service provider business. But as carriers’ businesses undergo a new stage of transformation, enabled by technologies such as SDN, NFV and LSO, plenty of challenges still need to be addressed. For example, the move from early stage proofs of concepts to wider and more large-scale deployments could impact service levels. There also needs to be more work to align open source initiatives with open standards. The MEF continues to play a significant and leading role in this evolution process. | 8:55 minutes

Nan Chen, President of MEF, discusses MEF's major initiatives designed to accelerate the shift to agile, assured, and orchestrated Third Network services delivered over automated, virtualized, and interconnected networks. This includes (1) orchestrated Third Network connectivity & point services, (2) LSO (Lifecycle Service Orchestration), and (3) MEF's Open Initiative which incorporates the LSO Hackathon, OpenLSO, OpenCS, and other activities. Nan also comments on the upcoming MEF16 global networking event taking place during 7-10 November in Baltimore/Washington DC, USA. | 6:35 minutes

Stan Hubbard, Director of Communications & Research, MEF shares highlights from MEF's Annual Members Meeting in Boston. Comments focus on MEF's 4 major work areas; (1) orchestrated Third Network services, (2) LSO (Lifecycle Service Orchestration), (3) Open Initiative, and (4) an expanded certification program. | 2:54 minutes

Michael Strople, Chairman, MEF & President, Zayo Managed Services discusses changing market dynamics associated with the rise of cloud services and how MEF's goal is to accelerate development of Third Network services that are optimized for the cloud era. He illustrates the broad appeal of MEF's vision by noting that the organization recently experienced a record quarter in the growth of new member companies from various sectors of the industry. | 5:18 minutes

Vertical Systems Group's senior analysts Rosemary Cochran, Principal & Co-Founder and Erin Dunne, Director of Research Services discuss the opportunities and challenges associated with the industry transition to Third Network services. They note that the advancement to the Third Network is well underway, with more efficient operations, streamlined development of services, and the ability to deliver innovative dynamic services. Industry standards development will be the key to progress, especially for end-to-end orchestration of services across network operators and cloud providers. Over time, service providers will face increased competitive threats from those who are able to offer compelling new on-demand services. The analysts also explore other topics, including the compelling value of the MEF Carrier Ethernet Certification Program (MEF-CECP) and the market impact of SD-WAN and NFV. | 14:15 minutes

Dan Blemings, Director of Ethernet Product Management, AT&T Mobile & Business Solutions discusses some of AT&T's latest service innovations and explains why the company decided to release its ECOMP (Enhanced Control, Orchestration, Management & Policy) platform --which controls its SDN network -- to the open source community. AT&T appointed Amdocs to be an integrator for telcos and cloud developers who want to use ECOMP to build their own software-centric network services. Blemings also covers how ECOMP ties in with MEF’s LSO (Lifecycle Service Orchestration) work. | 9:36 minutes

Mary Stanhope, VP of Marketing, Global Capacity shares her perspective on how more efficient operation and interconnection of Ethernet networks is contributing to healthy development of the wholesale services market and yielding positive benefits for end customers. Global Capacity itself has created a market place platform of interconnected network service providers and pre-set interconnects to data centers, cloud providers, and application providers in order streamline service turn-up and automate service delivery. Going forward, LSO promises to help the overall wholesale market work better by enabling end-to-end management of services across provider networks and shortening ordering and delivery times. | 4:57 minutes

Anthony Peres, Marketing Director, IP Routing, Nokia and Ralph Santitor, Head of SDN/NFV Solutions Practice, Fujitsu, discuss MEF's new Carrier Ethernet and NFV white paper, which is part of a broad range of MEF initiatives to accelerate the introduction of agile, assured, and orchestrated Third Network services. Bringing valuable insight to the growing ecosystem of Third Network services and technology companies, the paper explores options for introducing and implementing virtual network functions and services onto foundational CE 2.0 connectivity services. The paper is available for download from the MEF website here.

The paper examines use cases for different delivery models (centralized, decentralized, and distributed) for virtual network functions and services remotely within the service provider’s network, at the customer premises or a combination of thereof. The paper also discusses approaches and trade-offs for service demarcation equipment at the customer premises for different network functions and services - for example, Network Interface Devices (NIDs) with no functions virtualized, Virtual CPEs (vCPE) with all functions virtualized, or hybrid implementations. | 5:06 minutes

Allan Langfield, Executive Director, Product Development, Comcast discusses how LSO, SDN, and NFV will usher in a new era of dynamic services that are relevantly interconnected and more efficiently implemented in ways that simply have not been possible with traditional technologies. He anticipates that we will see increased operational efficiency and shorter time to market for new services that will benefit end-users. Allan highlights that MEF's comprehensive effort to (1) expand service specification work to include Layer 3 IP and other services, (2) automate the service lifecycle with LSO, and (3) improve carrier-to-carrier integration & automation will be important factors in moving the industry forward. | 4:46 minutes

David Ball, Senior Architect, Cisco, is leading MEF's work to define Layer 3 IP services attributes. In early 2016, MEF launched its major IP project to create a standard set of attributes that can be used to define IP services delivered over multiple interconnected provider networks. Standardized IP services consistent and compatible with those of globally adopted CE 2.0 services will allow service providers to leverage MEF’s LSO work to create orchestrated IP VPN, Internet access, and direct cloud access services. These services are part of MEF's Third Network vision to enable agile, assured, and orchestrated Layer 1-3 connectivity services along with orchestrated Layer 4-7 cloud services like security-as-a-service. | 4:03 minutes

Chris Purdy, CTO, CENX highlights the importance of MEF's LSO Reference Architecture and development of standardized, open APIs for orchestrating and assuring services over both physical and virtual networks. | 6:00 minutes

Shahar Steiff, AVP New Technologies, PCCW Global discusses the most significant developments shaping the services market, as the role of the programmable network increases and customers look towards agility as a key factor in their purchasing decisions. PCCW Global has just launched a new service that enables its customers to add a virtual machine to their VPN, giving them further control over their service configuration. Shahar notes that MEF is unique in its holistic approach to standards devlopment, with its focus on (1) services, (2) orchestration of those services with LSO, and (3) operational processes. This gives MEF a leading position within the industry. | 8:21 minutes

Brendan Gunn, Director, Global Ethernet & IP Services, Verizon Partner Solutions (formerly Verizon Global Wholesale) discusses how emerging Third Network-related technologies (including LSO APIs, SDN, and NFV) are beginning to reshape the wholesale and retail services market. These new technologies are enabling greater business agility, speeding time to market for services, and facilitating end-to-end management of service delivery. Brendan also talks about some of the key steps Verizon has taken to move the industry forward, including the introduction of NFV-based, SD-WAN, and secure cloud interconnect services. | 6:41 minutes

Alessandro Talotta, Chairman & CEO, Telecom Italia Sparkle discusses the most significant developments shaping the wholesale services markets and TI Sparkle's efforts to integrate virtual services and LSO-enabled capabilities into its portfolio. As the importance of LSO increases, and customers start to see value in its implementation, MEF and its members continue to make progress with their drive towards more agile Third Network services. Exciting progress in orchestrating services over multiple interconnected provider networks & a cloud provider will be demonstrated at MEF16. | 5:12 minutes

Jack Pugaczewski, Distinguished Architect, Centurylink, and Stéphan Pelletier, Director of Product Management for Orchestration, Oracle, explain how the development of the LSO Reference Architecture & Framework (MEF 55) and open APIs will enable operators to rearchitect their OSS/BSS systems in order to deploy more agile services, reduce costs, and create new revenue opportunities. The LSO RA's precisely defined reference interfaces and orchestration functions provide a great platform for defining specific North-South and East-West open APIs to automate service lifecycle functions within and between network operators. An example is the Presto set of APIs that sit at the reference point between a service orchestrator and one or more domain controllers.

MEF has adopted a more agile, hybrid approach to standards development that involves taking emerging specifications and realizing them in code more quickly, testing things out in reference implementations involving open and closed source solutions, and then providing a feedback loop to harden specifications. MEF's Open Initiatives include LSO Hackathons and the new OpenLSO (Open Lifecycle Service Orchestration) and OpenCS (Open Connectivity Services) ecosystems to maximize alignment of market implementations with MEF’s LSO and connectivity services specifications. | 10:06 minutes

Andy Mayer, Former LSO Chief Architecture, MEF, provides an update on Phase 2 of LSO (Lifecycle Services Orchestration) development work. Phase 1 completed earlier this year involved the publication of the LSO Reference Architecture & Framework (MEF55), which sets all of the guiding principles around LSO. Phase 2 advances work related to LSO APIs, operational threads/processes, and information models required for standardized orchestration of services across multiple network domains and multiple operator networks. LSO development is taking place within the context of a huge industry focus on open networking and virtualized network functions riding in data centers. The end result is greater customer control over service connectivity and functions. | 8:03 minutes

Mark Albolafia, COO, Datavision explains the role of a systems integrator in helping service providers enable Third Network services. He highlights the importance of LSO in automating back-office systems and providing a standardized approach for how service providers can interoperate with each other in a more dynamic services environment. Datavision is a Co-Director for two of MEF's new OpenCS (Open Connectivity) Services Projects - NFV and Cloud Exchange. Cloud Exchange is focused on creating a standard API / methodology that would allow customers to connect to multiple cloud service providers via service provider networks. Today, this is done in an ad hoc manner. | 5:53 minutes

Pascal Menezes, CTO, MEF discusses the organization's major areas of work to enable the industry transition to agile, assured, and orchestrated Third Network services. MEF is expanding well beyond CE 2.0 to drive development of a full range of services that are expected to include orchestrated Layer 1, 2, and 3 connectivity services (such as wavelengths, CE 2.0, and IP) plus Layer 4-7 cloud (point) services. MEF recently launched Phase 2 of the LSO Reference Architecture development and is now advancing work related to LSO interfaces, APIs, operational processes, and information models required for orchestrating services across multiple network domains and multiple operator networks. Pascal is leading MEF’s Open Initiatives in order to align the ecosystem of industry standards and open source players to accelerate the transition to Third Network services. MEF is modernizing its approach to developing specifications, collaborating with external groups, and illustrating how open source and closed source solutions can be combined to support Third Network services. The Open Initiatives the new OpenLSO (Open Lifecycle Service Orchestration) and OpenCS (Open Connectivity Services) reference implementation work in addition to the UNITE collaboration program and the popular LSO Hackathon. MEF currently has 7 OpenCS Projects that include Packet WAN, Data Center, NFV, Optical Transport, SD-WAN, Cloud Exchange, and 5G reference implementations. | 12:53 minutes

Dan Blemings, Director of Ethernet Product Management, AT&T Mobile & Business Solutions emphasizes that there is a massive technology shift coming in the way the way that businesses are connected together. He discusses new service innovations that improve the customer experience, including the ability to interact directly with services and connect to the cloud with greater agility. Dan highlights the important role of LSO, open APIs, NFV, and SDN in enabling industry transformation. LSO brings it all together by providing a standardized way for service providers to orchestrate on-demand services across multiple provider networks. | 7:32 minutes

MEF is focused on enabling agile, assured, and orchestrated Third Network services over automated, virtualized, and interconnected networks. MEF COO Kevin Vachon shares highlights on key LSO and open initiative work at MEF’s Annual Meeting in Boston and provides a preview of the MEF16 event in Baltimore, 7-10 November. | 1:36 minutes

Converge! - It's a very busy time at AT&T with the recent expansions of Network On Demand services and its global Ethernet footprint. Dan Blemings, Director of Ethernet Product Management, AT&T, discusses some of the transformative steps underway to help accelerate the business benefits of Ethernet-driven services and create an ecosystem of agile, on-demand capabilities. Recorded at the MEF Annual Members Meeting in Boston. | 2:01 minutes

SDN and NFV are now transforming service delivery in a material way, says Brendan Gunn, Director, Global Ethernet and IP for Verizon Wholesale. As before, the core challenge remains to deliver connectivity to people, places and things while doing so securely, reliably and simply. To do so, Verizon Wholesale focuses on (1) expanding the physical layer (2) building Layer 2 and 3 functionality on top of that infrastructure, including SD-WAN, NFV-as-a-service, ultra high-speed ports, etc. | 2:13 minutes

MEF is advancing development of Third Network services based on LSO, SDN, and NFV encapsulated in OpenCS use cases and OpenLSO capabilities. MEF CTO Pascal Menezes discusses the launch of new projects for 5G, SD WAN & Cloud Exchange technology domains that will be orchestrated using LSO APIs. Project directors will coordinate use cases, information models, and APIs needed for orchestrating services across these and other domains. 1:11 minutes

MEF is now looking to take the next big step forward with certification of Third Network services enabled by LSO (Lifecycle Service Orchestration), says Bob Mandeville, President of Iometrix. The pivotal moment will come at this fall’s MEF16 event on November 7-10 in Baltimore. | 2:04 minutes

MEF has published its LSO reference architecture. Orchestration encompasses a wide variety of functions, says Marie Fiala Timlin, Director of Marketing for CENX. These capabilities include fulfillment control, security policy, analytics and assurance -- areas that CENX focuses on. 1:02 minutes

Ethernet continues to drives the next wave of hybrid networks or software-defined WANs, says Mary Stanhope, VP of Marketing for Global Capacity, speaking at the MEF's Annual Members Meeting in Boston. | 1:12 minutes

The Open Networking Foundation (ONF) has been working with the MEF for over a year to bring SDN and NFV into the scope of Carrier Ethernet, says Dan Pitt, Executive Director of ONF. The focus now is on Lifecycle Service Orchestration and carrier-grade SDN into multi-carrier deployments. 1:32 minutes

Security must be an essential part of the MEF's Lifecycle Services Orchestration (LSO) and the Third Network, says Wedge Networks' CTO Hongwen Zhang. Tomorrow's cloud-based economy will rely on the security of network services. Wedge Networks is proposing a Security as a Service Ad Hoc Working Group within the MEF. | 2:01 minutes

Founded back in 2000, the MEF is a long-established industry body that has quickly and cleverly adapted to changing times and technologies and is now a major player in the ongoing development of NFV. With the global ubiquity of the Internet now enhanced and magnified by the agility provided by the cloud, the emergent 3rd Network plays directly to customer needs by providing the ability quickly to add functions as and when needed and within wide parameters of choice inherent to the Open Source ecosystem and community. | 4:54 minutes