The Metro Ethernet Forum(MEF), China Unicom, ON.Lab and Huawei have signed an MOU to collaborate on using open source solutions to transform Central Offices and accelerate the industry transition to Third Network services.
The MEF-led initiative plans to develop use cases that illustrate how operators can deliver agile, assured, and orchestrated MEF-defined services by using open source software and open specification hardware.
According to MEF, combining open source solutions within a standardized framework and a real-world operator environment provides an opportunity to bring the economies of the datacenter (open source software with white box switches) and the agility of the cloud (rapid service creation) to the service provider community.
At the same time, ON.Lab and partners have been developing CORD as an open virtualized service delivery platform for redesigned Central Offices. The CORD project has created and demonstrated Enterprise-CORD to support enterprise customers with SD-WAN services including virtual network on demand. For this MOU, the CORD project will demonstrate support for MEF-defined services as well as virtualization of CPE and other network elements on Enterprise-CORD.
Nan Chen, President of the MEF
The MEF is pleased to collaborate with China Unicom, ON.Lab, and Huawei to develop compelling Third Network use cases that will lead to productivity-enhancing innovations that benefit both service end-users and providers.
Guru Parulkar, Executive Director, ON.Lab
ON.Lab and the CORD Project are pleased to have this opportunity to work with MEF, China Unicom, and Huawei to build and demonstrate forward-looking services on the E-CORD platform.
