MEF Conference Highlights NaaS Progress

MEF, the organization of technology vendors and service providers developing specifications and frameworks for Network-as-a-Service (NaaS), this week kicked off its Global NaaS Event (GNE) 2024 conference in Arlington, TX, with a slew of announcements. On the opening day of the event, MEF touted the expansion of its Enterprise Leadership Council (ELC), provided an update on vendor and service provider SASE certifications, and called attention to the broad industry adoption of its Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) API.

Taken together, these and other announcements at GNE 2024 reflect the great progress MEF and its member organizations have made in the last year in establishing NaaS as a critical foundational element of enterprise connectivity.

Focus on the Enterprise

MEF, whose members were predominantly technology vendors and service providers, formed the ELC last year to bring the voice of the enterprise into its work on NaaS APIs, specifications, and frameworks.

When formed, the ELC had four founding members. At GNE 2024, MEF announced that number has grown to 14 members. One of the main points touted about the expansion is that it broadens the vertical industry mix among the members, including executives from entertainment, financial services, banking, retail, technology, healthcare, and consulting. The ELC now includes executives from Accenture, Bloomberg LP, Google Enterprise Network, Morgan Stanley, TD Bank, UPMC, Williams-Sonoma, and more. 

Adding ELC members from new and more diverse industries will help provide MEF with insights into the various connectivity demands of companies in those different industries. Those differences can be quite significant. For example, retail organizations need to uniformly connect outlets and brick-and-mortar stores to corporate systems and the Internet, regardless of where they are located globally. That's one type of connectivity.

In contrast, healthcare organizations need to be able to securely share large medical diagnostic image files and patient records within the organization, with other clinics and medical facilities, and with insurance providers.

Adding members and taking their connectivity differences into account will help guide new MEF efforts. “By amplifying the enterprise voice, we're not only responding to current industry needs but anticipating future ones,” said Sunil Khandekar, Chief Enterprise Development Officer, MEF. “The ELC's diverse expertise is already shaping MEF’s NaaS initiatives.

An example of what the group’s efforts can deliver is MEF’s recently launched Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) Circuit Impairment & Maintenance (CIM) Service API, designed to enable service providers to automate and standardize how network circuit impairments and scheduled maintenance are communicated to enterprises. Future projects will focus on cybersecurity alerts, AIOps, and more.

LSOs are the Way to Go

Network-as-a-Service, as the name implies, seeks to make the procurement and use of connectivity and networks similar to that of using any cloud service. To that point, NaaS brings a type of on-demand subscription model to the market.

The challenge is that supporting such global connectivity often requires the involvement of multiple providers using equipment from different technology vendors. That makes the automation of business and operational functions critical.

Enter Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO). LSOs streamline and automate the coordination, management, and control of services across all entities responsible for delivering an end-to-end connectivity service.

MEF LSO APIs provide the needed business and operational automation between the multiple parties required to provide a cloud service provider or enterprise with connectivity. The CIM Service API is just one of the many LSO APIs MEF has developed. There are LSOs that help convey, share, and interchange billing information, service conditions, and more.

At the conference, MEF announced that there are now more than 160 global service providers from 65 countries in various stages of MEF LSO adoption. This progress in adoption was put into perspective in the opening day’s media briefing.

“The rapid adoption of MEF’s LSO APIs across reflects an ongoing shift towards automated, standardized service delivery,” said Daniel Bar Lev, Chief Product Officer, MEF. “With expanded capabilities for enterprises and more, we’re enabling a new standard of efficiency and flexibility in Network-as-a-Service.”

Ensuring Enterprise Confidence via Certifications

NaaS is seen as the underlying foundation for delivering secure global connectivity and supporting higher-level services, including SD-WAN and SASE. MEF LSOs and frameworks advance the field, but certification is another important component, especially for enterprises looking for services.

Here, too, there was news from GNE 2024. MEF announced that 15 technology and service providers have achieved SASE certification. Specifically, MEF announced that technology providers Fortinet and Versa, as well as service providers AT&T, BT, Colt, Comcast Business, Console Connect, Liberty Latin America, Lumen, Orange Business, TPG, and Verizon, have earned full certification as part of the MEF 3.0 Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Certification Program.

The MEF SASE certification program includes rigorous testing of SASE, which includes SD-WAN, Security Service Edge (SSE), and Zero Trust capabilities. MEF relies on a partnership with CyberRatings.org (CRO), a security testing laboratory, to conduct the certifications.

A Closing Thought on NaaS and GNE 2024

NaaS has caught the attention of enterprises worldwide. Its promise of bringing cloud-like simplicity to procuring, paying for, and using secure connectivity services globally has enormous appeal.

However, the complexity of delivering on those promises requires automation across multiple providers and between providers and enterprises. There is also a need for standards and certification testing.

The GNE 2024 brought the necessary stakeholders (technology vendors, service providers, and enterprise users) together to map out what’s needed today and, in the future, to make NaaS services a reality.