MEF, a global industry association of network, cloud, security, and technology providers accelerating enterprise digital transformation, today announced availability of its MEF IP Services and API Portfolio. This powerful suite empowers IP Broadband Access, Direct Internet Access (DIA) and IP VPN operators to wholesale their offerings seamlessly to retail service providers to deliver end-to-end Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) solutions. Aligned with MEF’s NaaS Industry Blueprint, the comprehensive portfolio features a range of new and existing MEF assets and is ideal for SD-WAN services, cloud access and edge computing applications.
The market for Internet Access services is experiencing rapid growth. The MEF IP Services and API Portfolio is strategically designed to meet the demands of this expanding market, offering a suite of MEF-developed deliverables for NaaS services and solutions, including:
IP service attributes and service definition standards
Standardized IP service and product schemas including new IP product and service data schemas (payloads) and developer guides
Open standard Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) business and operational APIs
Onboarding and Interop Testing (OIT) and API certification services
LSO community
IP Services Standards
MEF’s extensive library of standards is developed and approved by the world’s leading service and technology providers and based on IETF standards. These standards include IP Service Attributes, Subscriber IP Service Definitions, SOAM for IP Services, Service Activation Testing for IP Services and MEF Services Model: Information Model for IP/IP VPN. MEF standards continuously evolve to meet the latest requirements of NaaS use cases.
Standardized IP Schemas
MEF’s standardized product and service data schemas for IP services work together with the comprehensive open standard LSO APIs for both automated business and operational interactions between NaaS operators and IP services operators. MEF’s new IP broadband and DIA services product payload and accompanying MEF developer guide are available now. MEF’s IP service data schemas and developer guide will be available in January 2024.
LSO Business and Operational APIs
MEF’s extensive portfolio of LSO APIs enable IP broadband and DIA service providers to automate all aspects of their business interactions with their customers increasing their ability to participate in NaaS offerings including SD-WAN, cloud and 5G/6G services. LSO APIs are published with business requirements and use case standards, API schema and developer guide standards, and test requirement standards and are continuously iterated on a six-month cadence.
Additionally, MEF’s powerful LSO Blending Tool enables developers to blend MEF LSO APIs with MEF’s Internet Access product data schemas amplifying the value of LSO API implementations used with any MEF standardized product payload.
MEF OIT and LSO API Certification Services
MEF’s IP Services and API Portfolio includes OIT services, which enables operators to constantly test their interoperability readiness with their partners using a subscription- and cloud-based test harness service used by over 20 service providers to date. MEF OIT is highly valuable both for sellers and buyers as it dramatically shortens the onboarding process.
In addition, MEF’s LSO API Certification program, part of its highly successful MEF 3.0 Certification program which has certified over 150 companies for thousands of products and services, enables IP Broadband, DIA and IP VPN operators to prove their ability to use LSO APIs for buying and selling of their services.
LSO Community
The widespread adoption of LSO APIs, with over 40 service providers in production and an additional 100 in various stages of adoption, has fostered a thriving community of service providers leveraging MEF’s standardized IP Services and API portfolio to automate business and operations with partners. Additionally, a growing ecosystem of LSO Solution Providers is empowering Internet Access operators to harness the power of LSO APIs and LSO Internet Access product payloads to seamlessly collaborate with any LSO partner. For more insights, refer to MEF’s comprehensive State of the Industry Report published earlier this year.
Pascal Menezes, CTO, MEF
The MEF IP Services and API Portfolio is a culmination of years of collaboration and innovation within the MEF community. We are proud to make this comprehensive portfolio available to the industry, empowering service providers to seamlessly offer NaaS services and capitalize on the rapidly growing Internet Access services market.
