MEF and the TM Forum are collaborating to align their application programming interfaces (APIs) and product and service models. The goal is to streamline automation for MEF Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) implementations.
Examples of NaaS implementations include on-demand connectivity such as carrier Ethernet and IP, end-to-end network slicing, multi-cloud access, and more.
MEF is a global industry association of network, cloud, security and technology providers that work to accelerate enterprise digital transformation. The TM Forum is a global alliance of telco and tech companies.
Network-as-a-Service
As MEF and the TM Forum note, telecom service providers and data center operators currently use many non-standard APIs that fail to scale with the automation requirements that enterprises want them to meet.
Aligning MEF and TM Forum APIs could go a long way to address the issue. TM Forum’s portfolio of more than 80 open APIs are a widely adopted industry standard, the organizations noted. And more than 160 service providers are adopting MEF APIs.
Standardized APIs “reduce market confusion, cut both capex and opex costs and accelerate time to revenue,” according to the organizations.
The organizations plan to combine MEF’s Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) APIs with TM Forum’s Open Digital Architecture (ODA) and Open API standards.
“True end-to-end automation requires industry-wide collaboration on common specifications to enable automated service delivery across the broader telecommunications ecosystem,” TM Forum CTO George Glass said in a press release.
“Our work with MEF serves as a blueprint for other domains facing similar multi-partner integration challenges as we continue collaborating to drive industry-wide standardization.”