Industry Embraces The "Third Network" and Lifecycle Service Orchestration at GEN14

WASHINGTON, Nov. 20, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- More than 1,100 attendees representing 350+ companies from 36 countries and world-class Carrier Ethernet, Service Orchestration, SDN, NFV, optical, and cloud service expert speakers assembled in Washington DC this week at GEN14 (GEN14.com). The message was clear that the world is ready to embrace the MEF's vision of the Third Network - the industry is working in collaboration building upon the strengths of both the Internet and CE 2.0 to define Lifecycle Service Orchestration and develop NFV and SDN implementations enabling Agile, Assured and Orchestrated Network as a Service.

Attendees to GEN14 were witness to live demonstrations of elements of Third Network in action, only 2 months after its launch. The focal point of the GEN14 exhibition area was the Proof of Concept (PoC) Showcase - six participant groups provided live demonstrations of leading-edge implementations of dynamic cloud-centric Carrier Ethernet services with SDN, NFV, automated provisioning, service orchestration, and other innovations.

Some of the comments and reactions from the six PoC groups and industry leaders attending GEN14 include:

"The Third Network vision, as recently outlined by the MEF, lines up with the Proof of Concept that CenturyLink and Ciena are demonstrating at GEN14. The implementation of MEF Third Network functionality in a single and multi-carrier network is an essential step in moving towards a cloud and network orchestration vision." Jack Pugaczewski, Principal Architect, CenturyLink.

"MEF's Third Network is about delivering agile, assured and orchestrated services.  As presented in our Showcase Demo and validated with deployments at customers such as Colt and KVH, Cyan's Blue Planet SDN and NFV orchestration platform delivers automated, dynamic and on-demand Carrier Ethernet services in multi-vendor production networks today. Innovative carriers that fully embrace multi-vendor SDN and NFV will drive the industry forward, creating new content and application services that seamlessly combine the WAN and virtual resources to deliver unique new product offerings." Abel Tong, Director of Solutions Marketing, Cyan.

"Ericsson's work in MEF provides one of the most crucial APis to support the implementation of agile and orchestrated services which is enabling the potential of the Third Network vision to be embraced and realized today." Scott Mansfield, Principal Engineer, Ericsson.

"With the MEF's Third Network vision, we are entering a new era, where CSP market leadership will be defined based on the commercial launch of state-of-the-art performance-assured services. InfoVista is thrilled to cooperate with Oracle in demonstrating how CSPs can implement and reap the benefits of the Third Network vision." Cyril Doussau, Senior Director, Head of Service Assurance Product Line, InfoVista.

"With the MEF's Third Network vision, service providers can offer a more dynamic network control experience to their enterprise customers as they increasingly embrace cloud-based services. Oracle's and InfoVista's demonstration of The Third Network service orchestration and assurance with full business process integration at MEF GEN14 showcases the core tenets of this vision and provides a design blueprint for transforming it into a business reality," said Nigel Ball, Vice President of Marketing, Oracle Communications.

"With the advent of the Third Network and its APIs, service providers will be able to leverage today's tried-and-true CE 2.0 networks to enable new technologies such as SDN and NFV to deliver exciting new services. The Third Network is a powerful strategy that will help the industry transition to this exciting new world of dynamic service creation and delivery." Prayson Pate, CTO & Senior Vice President of R&D, Overture Networks.

"Security is a key indicator of a high quality network service as promised by the Third Network and Wedge is committed to promoting Security as a Service as a key contribution to the MEF's vision. Wedge's technology is high performance, software defined, that can seamlessly embed security within the network and orchestrate a personalized service across multiple network segments with built-in automated security functions." Dr. Hongwen Zhang, CEO of Wedge Networks.

"With capabilities like SDN and NFV being developed, the industry needs a unifying vision. The Third Network fills that void. It represents the pinnacle of what we hope to achieve with some of these newer technologies that are so disruptive to the status quo. While there's still a lot of standardization work ahead; network efficiency, service delivery, customer service, and customer control will all be maximized when we realize the Third Network vision." Sam Koetter, Sr. Product Manager, Ethernet and Cloud Services, XO Communications.

More information about the six participant PoC groups and themes can be found here: http://www.gen14.com/index.php/program/proof-of-concept-showcase

About the MEF:

The MEF is the defining body and driving force behind the global market for Carrier Ethernet. MEF's flagship work is CE 2.0, including specifications and related certification programs for services, equipment and professionals (MEF-CECP 2.0). An industry alliance consisting of more than 225 member organizations, the MEF operates through a powerful collaborative framework of service providers, network solutions suppliers and other stakeholders to achieve its CE 2.0  development and globalization objectives.

Building on thirteen years of success and widespread adoption of CE 2.0, MEF is now focused on defining Lifecycle Service Orchestration with APIs for existing network, NFV and SDN implementations enabling Agile, Assured and Orchestrated Network as a Service. 

For more information about the MEF please visit www.MetroEthernetForum.org

SOURCE MEF

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