/EINPresswire.com/ -- LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwired - Jul 19, 2017) - MEF, the driving force enabling agile, assured, and orchestrated Third Network services, is extending its work to standardize SD-WAN managed services. MEF is defining SD-WAN service terminology, components, and implementations in the context of MEF's LSO (Lifecycle Service Orchestration) Reference Architecture and Framework (MEF 55). This work will ensure consistency of performance, policy, and security of SD-WAN services orchestrated across multiple provider networks, leveraging open LSO APIs.

"Businesses are demanding WAN flexibility to control costs as they migrate applications to the cloud and see SD-WAN as an option to address this," said Pascal Menezes, CTO, MEF. "To meet these demands and remain competitive, service providers are looking to integrate SD-WAN into a portfolio of orchestrated services delivered in a seamless, automated fashion. MEF is uniquely positioned to bring together managed service providers (MSPs), orchestration experts, and SD-WAN vendors to address this challenge and accelerate SD-WAN managed service deployments on behalf of the enterprises."

Key MEF SD-WAN initiatives and deliverables include:

SD-WAN Service Implementations
MEF's established OpenCS (Open Connectivity Services) SD-WAN Project currently is focused on providing use cases and business requirements to ensure that open standard LSO APIs can enable orchestration of SD-WAN managed services across multi-provider and multi-vendor implementations. The MEF community has agreed on the first six major SD-WAN managed services use cases to advance this groundbreaking work. The OpenCS SD-WAN project also will deliver a rich set of LSO APIs to enable consistent SD-WAN assurance, application performance, and security policies, which include telemetry data feeding back into LSO analytic platforms for various AI automated use cases.

The OpenCS SD-WAN project is led by Riverbed and VeloCloud Networks with contributions thus far from Amartus, Cox, Fujitsu Network Communications, GBI, Huawei, and Nokia/Nuage. Silver Peak and Versa Networks recently have joined as MEF members to contribute to the SD-WAN work as well.

"MEF's OpenCS SD-WAN project is empowering the service provider community with vendor-neutral models for optimally delivering applications over real world software-defined infrastructure," said Joe Ruffles, Global Standards Architect, Riverbed.

"Our OpenCS SD-WAN project will enable integration of managed SD-WAN services in multi-service environments with seamless interoperability between different orchestrated services," said Tim Van Herck, Sr. Director of Technical Marketing, VeloCloud Networks. "This will further accelerate deployment by providers and adoption by enterprise clients."

"As a new MEF member, we are pleased to actively contribute to the OpenCS SD-WAN project and fully support content and communications intended to raise awareness and accelerate managed SD-WAN service deployments," said Nav Chander, Sr. Director, Service Provider Marketing, Silver Peak. "We're proud to be a part of MEF and its growing membership to facilitate industry dialogue and collectively address service provider implementation issues surrounding managed SD-WAN services."

"Versa is excited to join MEF's OpenCS SD-WAN Project and work with fellow vendors and providers to accelerate onboarding of SD-WAN solutions into providers' portfolios, develop standards-based interoperability and increase market adoption of managed SD-WAN services around the world," said Dogu Narin, Sr. Director of Product Management, Versa Networks.

SD-WAN Market Education
MEF recently created the SD-WAN Market Education Project to explain MEF's position on SD-WAN and how it aligns with other initiatives focused on orchestrated Layer 1-7 services enabled by LSO APIs. Educational materials will include white papers, webinars, workshops, and use cases.

White Paper -- Understanding SD-WAN Managed Services: Service Components, MEF LSO Reference Architecture, and Use Cases. MEF today released a groundbreaking white paper that introduces SD-WAN functions, terminology, and service components; explains how the components fit within the LSO Reference Architecture; and provides SD-WAN managed services use cases.

"MEF's new SD-WAN work will address implementation challenges and accelerate SD-WAN services deployments by creating a common vernacular and service architecture, which have not existed up to this point," said Ralph Santitoro, principal author of MEF's SD-WAN white paper, MEF Distinguished Fellow, and Head of SDN/NFV Solutions Practice delivering SD-WAN managed services at Fujitsu. Ceragon, NEC/Netcracker, Nokia, RAD, Riverbed, Silver Peak, VeloCloud, and MEF's CTO also contributed to the paper.

Webinar - MEF SD-WAN Managed Service Use Cases, Challenges, and Standardization Work.
MEF will host a webinar at 11am US ET on 9 August 2017 that will discuss SD-WAN managed service market drivers and business benefits and describe how MEF's work addresses operational challenges to accelerate service delivery.

MEF17 SD-WAN Proof of Concept Demonstrations
SD-WAN will be one of the hottest topics covered during Proof of Concept demonstrations, workshops, sessions, and keynotes at the MEF17 global networking event to be held November 13-16 at the Loews Sapphire Falls Resort in Orlando, Florida.

About MEF
An industry association of 210+ member companies, MEF is enabling service providers to create a global ecosystem of networks that deliver agile, assured, and orchestrated services for the digital economy and hyper-connected world. These services provide an on-demand, cloud-centric experience with user and application-directed control over network resources and service capabilities. They are delivered over automated, virtualized, and interconnected networks powered by LSO, SDN, and NFV. MEF produces globally adopted service specifications, LSO frameworks, open LSO APIs, reference implementations, and certification programs. MEF currently is developing open LSO APIs for orchestrating standardized wavelength, Carrier Ethernet, IP, SD-WAN, and Layer 4-7 services across multiple provider networks. For more information: https://mef.net/.