On the day two of the event prominent keynote speakers included Kevin Vachon, COO, MEF; Michael Strople, chairman, MEF; and Nan Chen, president, MEF.
MEF is doing crucial work to bring standardization to new environment with over 30 ongoing projects and new initiatives aimed at providing an on-demand, orchestrated, assured, secured, and cloud-connected experience.
Unofficial themes of the whole event were tagged to be change and automation, revealed Strople.
“Change is all around us, the world is changing, technology is driving that change and that change in how we all live and work. And of course our industry is changing to respond to those changes. I would like to point out one of the things that is changing more slowly, and that is the $80 billion carrier Ethernet industry,” conveyed Strople.
Major announcements made during the event include:
# Epsilon gained MEF Carrier Ethernet 2.0 (CE 2.0) certification for point-to-point (E-Line) services.
# Global Capacity announced the expansion of its One Marketplace network backbone with high-speed Ethernet implementing Ciena 8700 Packetwave Platform.
# CenturyLink and Accedian are demonstrating a new level of performance visibility for global networks at the MEF16 conference proof of concept (PoC) showcase.
# Ciena has introduced an open, distributed network functions virtualization (D-NFV) solution designed to roll-out new applications and network services at cloud speed.
# Adtran and Spirent Communications are demonstrating zero-touch, end-user initiated on-boarding of cloud-based 10G Carrier Ethernet (CE) services over SDN-controlled NG-PON2 networks as part of the MEF16 Proof of Concept (PoC) Showcase.
# Viavi has collaborated with Comcast, Telecom Italia Sparkle and Tata Communications in network function virtualization (NFV) to demonstrate the automated delivery of dynamic, bandwidth-on-demand services via an orchestrated multi-carrier, multi-platform solution.
# Brain4Net, NoviFlow and Edgecore Networks are demonstrating comprehensive SDN/NFV Solution for Metro Networks at MEF16 Proof of Concept Showcase.
# MRV Communications and Sandvine has announced their collaboration to demonstrate a NFV-based virtual customer premise equipment (vCPE) solution that enables next generation application awareness at the access network of the carrier.
# CenturyLink, RAD and Ciena Blue Planet division are showcasing a PoC on multi-vendor service orchestration using Open APIs for service activation, performance monitoring and NFV.
# AT&T recently introduced the LSO model to check the availability and speed of select Ethernet-based services by address, real time using two AT&T Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). Efforts for alignment with AT&T to extend its Network on Demand beyond its own network to meet the needs of customers were seen at MEF.
# Wedge Networks announced the addition of the Wedge Advanced Malware Blocker security application to its Security-as-a-Service delivery platform.
# Wedge and ePLDT are jointly showcasing Security-as-a-Service running from ePLDT’s cloud in the Philippines at the MEF16 Proof of Concept (PoC) Showcase.
# The OPEN-O Project, tagged SUN, will enable end-to-end service orchestration across network functions virtualization (NFV), software-defined networking (SDN), and legacy networks, with OPEN-O Release 1.0 demonstrated at the MEF16 event.