Network Automation

MEF, TM Forum attract service providers for life cycle orchestration API standardization

Feb. 28, 2017

The MEF and TM Forum say they are working with a range of service providers and specification organization to create standards for Lifecycle Services Orchestration (LSO) application programming interfaces (APIs). The efforts, which combine the MEF LSO Framework and the TM Forum Open API framework, should help the service providers orchestrate connectivity services across multiple networks.

The two groups say that support of Carrier Ethernet orchestration will provide the initial use case for the collaboration. In the future, the API work could apply to orchestrated optical and IP services the MEF is defining and to advance the digital ecosystem orchestration and management work of the TM Forum.

Service providers and related organizations that are taking part in the effort include:

AT&T
Orange
Colt Technology Services
Comcast
Level 3
PCCW Global
Sparkle
Verizon
CableLabs
Kyrio (a CableLabs subsidiary).

Initial work focuses on the MEF's LSO Sonata reference point that deals with the management, operational, and business interactions between Ethernet service providers. The MEF and TM Forum members hope to accelerate inter-provider LSO API standardization by implementing a more agile development process, leveraging many of TM Forum's 31 Open API specifications and underpinning Information Framework and architecture. The group plan a software development "sprint," at the end of which the first inter-carrier LSO APIs will be implemented in late 2017.

Eight LSO Sonata API definitions are planned to be standardized. The first three APIs in the list below will be defined in the first round of the project -- "LSO Sonata Release 1" -- by the end of this year.