First vendors to support MEF 3.0 SD-WAN services named

MEF has announced that Nuage Networks from Nokia, Versa Networks, and Infovista are the first technology vendors certified to support MEF 3.0 software-defined wide-area network (SD-WAN) services.

This certification enables service and technology providers to validate the conformance of their services and products to the SD-WAN Service Attributes and Services (MEF 70) global standard.

Recent research from Heavy Reading indicates that 73% of 125 surveyed service provider professionals worldwide believe that SD-WAN technology certification is “critical” or “important” for accelerating SD-WAN market growth. Seventy-six percent of this group believe SD-WAN services certification is also critical or important for market growth.

MEF 3.0 SD-WAN certification tests the service attributes and requirements defined in MEF 70 and described in detail in the upcoming MEF SD-WAN Certification Test Requirements (MEF 90) standard. Customers who purchase MEF 3.0-certified solutions now can have greater confidence that they have met the highest levels of performance established by MEF.

“SD-WAN is gaining incredible excitement and momentum for empowering digital transformation,” said Nan Chen, President, MEF.

“We congratulate Nuage Networks, Versa Networks, and Infovista for achieving MEF 3.0 certification and demonstrating that they are a standards-based partner for service providers developing SD-WAN services. We look forward to continued momentum with the MEF 3.0 SD-WAN certification programme, including the announcement of our first group of certified service providers later this quarter.”

“Demand for SD-WAN is growing rapidly in all market segments and geographies, and there is strong momentum for it to be delivered as a managed service,” said Sunil Khandekar, Head of Nuage Networks from Nokia.

“The availability of the MEF 3.0 SD-WAN technology vendor certification is an important step in providing enterprises an industry benchmark for vendor selection and Nuage Networks from Nokia is proud to demonstrate its SD-WAN market leadership as a member of the first group to achieve this certification milestone.”

“SD-WAN has become a key part of the managed services portfolio of service providers globally in order to accelerate their enterprise customers’ digital transformation journey. With more than 60% of enterprises projected to deploy SD-WAN over the next two to four years, service providers needed to come together and establish standards, to help enterprises understand what they are buying and evaluate different solutions to accelerate services across automated networks,” said Kumar Mehta, co-founder and CDO, Versa Networks.

Said Mike Wilkinson, Chief Product Officer, Infovista: “We view our MEF 3.0 certification as a key milestone in addressing the requirements of both service providers and enterprises. We believe that it will help SD-WAN users in selecting a vendor that is committed to a market model that provides service consistency and interoperability.”

Spirent Communications is the MEF 3.0 SD-WAN Authorized Certification and Test Partner (ACTP). Spirent's Head of Virtualization and representative on the MEF Certification Committee Marc Cohn said: “Nuage Networks, Versa Networks, and Infovista have played a major role in refining the SD-WAN Certification Program, paving the way to the pilot services certifications already underway.”

An industry association of 200+ member companies, MEF introduced the MEF 3.0 transformational global services framework for defining, delivering, and certifying assured services orchestrated across a global ecosystem of automated networks. MEF 3.0 services are designed to provide an on-demand, cloud-centric experience with user- and application-directed control over network resources and service capabilities. MEF 3.0 services are delivered over automated, virtualised, and interconnected networks powered by lifecycle service orchestration (LSO), software-defined networks (SDN), and network functions virtualisation (NFV).

MEF produces service specifications, LSO frameworks, open LSO APIs, software-driven reference implementations, and certification programmes. MEF 3.0 work will enable automated delivery of standardised Carrier Ethernet, Optical Transport, IP, SD-WAN, security-as-a-service, and other Layer 4-7 services across multiple provider networks.

Details:

Companies interested in participating in the MEF 3.0 SD-WAN certification programme should contact sd-wan@mef.net for more information.