This document summarizes the activities of the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF). It discusses the MEF's work developing carrier Ethernet standards over the past 12 years, including 40 completed specifications. It provides an overview of the MEF's Certification Program and the growth of carrier Ethernet services. Finally, it introduces the new CloudEthernet Forum for addressing Ethernet scalability within and between data centers.
2. 2
MEF Agenda
• MEF at a glance
• MEF SA Membership and Activities
• CE 2.0 Report Card & Global Ethernet Trends
• Certification: CE 2.0 & MEF CECP
• New Service Operations Work
• CloudEthernet Forum May 2013 Launch
3. 3
Since 2001, Developing, Marketing and Certifying
Standards for Carrier Ethernet Services
Standards Education Compliance
220 Member Companies
129 Service Providers
40 Completed Specifications
Operations
4. MEF South African Membership & Activities
4
South Africa - 25
Africa – 35 (SA, Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt, Sudan)
7. 7
CE Global Growth
Consistent double-digit CAGR
Source: Ovum, Sept 2012
Total worldwide
bandwidth
purchased for
Ethernet Services
exceeds legacy
8. 8
CE, Cloud & SDN Work
Top Priority MEF Work in Progress
– Service extensions for automated on-demand bandwidth, performance
– New management APIs
Cloud Services and SDN
– CE already defines manageable, programmable network elements
– Collaboration with ONF
MEF Goal
– Seamless support for traditional
and SDN approaches, non-disruptive
to CE revenue growth/profitability Ethernet Cloud
Carrier(s)
Ethernet Cloud
Carrier(s)
Cloud Consumers
Cloud
Service
Provider
to Cloud
Customer
Cloud
Service
Provider(s)
Cloud
Service
Provider(s)
Data Center
Interconnectivity
9. 9
“Certification by Service”
• Since announcement in January 2013:
– 11 service providers
– 25 network equipment manufacturers
• “A Significant test” - 634 test cases replace
many months or even years of expert test
development of 8 CE Services
*Well known MEF 9, MEF 14
certification now known as:
11. 11
CloudEthernet Forum
Announced May 23rd, 2013 – Presentation at Africa COM
• To address scalability and enhancement of Ethernet
technology, performance and storage networks , to
meet the demands of cloud infrastructure
• Focus is Ethernet scalability within and between data
centres
• Operates within MEF legal and operational
framework
Advancing CE Networks and Services by a Generation
8 Ethernet Services (CE 1.0 defined 3 Service types)
3 Powerful Features: Multi-CoS, Interconnected, Managed
Data Center-Data Center via EPL, EVPL & Private cloud delivery to end users over statically provisioned connections
AVAILABLE TODAY
Major new MEF technical project in progress for
on-demand, elastic requirements of Cloud services
Both Private Cloud Delivery and Hybrid Services
Further notes
Data centres today are all about Ethernet. But Carrier Ethernet has not been adopted there, it is still predominantly VLAN connections without QoS support. This is creating restrictions of scale with VLAN limits and restricting differentiated cloud services delivery. Data centre connectivity must be more agile, multi tenancy and massive scale.
We need to remove the artificial barrier between DC and network. Cloud services do not warrant such hard barriers. We are actively supporting encouraging discussions which can sensibly remove this demarcation point.
Feb 2013
25% of MEF equipment manufacturers certified
Builds on highly successful CE 1.0 program with adoption by 90% of equipment manufacturers and on MEF specifications & 1000s of tech contributions
Driven by service provider demand for CE 2.0
The ImpactMulti-CoS, Manageability, Interconnect
Certification dramatically speeds time to market
Reduces deployment costs, further increasing the value proposition of Ethernet
A surge in the Ethernet Ubiquity
Represents a consensus of the industry
Built on MEF specifications & 1000s of tech contributions
The 634 test cases replace many months or even years of expert test development of 8 CE Services
10
Addressing Key Issues: including …
Scalability of Ethernet to support millions of VLANs in a way that maximizes the transparency of deployment and minimizes configuration and operation
Minimize performance degradation of Broadcast, Multicast & Unicast traffic at layer 2 while effectively managing large numbers of dispersed assets
Accelerate the consolidation of storage networks using Ethernet, currently using multiple unaligned technologies