AT&T, Orange, and Colt team with MEF and TMF to standardize SDN APIs

APIs
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AT&T, Orange, and Colt Technology Services announced that they are working with MEF and TM Forum to release the first set of standard APIs for orchestrated Carrier Ethernet services later this year.

The initiative uses MEF’s LSO (Lifecycle Service Orchestration) framework and TM Forum’s Open API framework.

The API standardization effort for orchestrated connectivity services is being conducted within MEF in partnership with TM Forum, and is open to both MEF and TM Forum members. This project revolves around the LSO Sonata reference point that deals with the management, operational, and business interactions between service providers. The API standardization project will build upon TM Forum Open API standards work involving nine of the world’s largest service providers.

The plan is to standardize eight API definitions, building on the industry-agreed ppen APIs developed by TM Forum members.

  1. Address validation
  2. Service availability
  3. Ordering
  4. Quoting
  5. Billing
  6. Assurance
  7. Testing
  8. Change management

The first three APIs listed above will be defined in the first round of the project this year.

The companies said the APIs will help reduce the burden of fragmented networks, giving businesses the power to provision scalable, flexible network services on-demand through software platforms like ECOMP.

ECOMP is now open-sourced through the Linux Foundation and will be used as a reference implementation for LSO APIs. The first round of APIs are expected to be released at the end of this year.

“Our research shows that the number one issue impeding the delivery of on-demand services is the need for a standardized approach to orchestrating services across multiple provider networks,” said Rosemary Cochran, principal at Vertical Systems Group.  “This initiative led by industry leaders to collaboratively standardize on APIs for Ethernet services is an essential step toward tackling this challenge.”

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