Comcast, Spectrum Among Service Providers Earning MEF SD-WAN Certification

The Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) recognized four service providers for meeting its global SD-WAN services standard.

Comcast Business, PCCW Global, Spectrum Enterprise and Telia Company all earned the the MEF 3.0 SD-WAN certification. The companies participated in the MEF 3.0 SD-WAN Certification Program, which is currently in a pilot. The service providers meet all the requirements of the MEF SD-WAN Attributes and Service Standard, also known as the MEF 70, which the industry consortium launched last summer.

MEF President Nan Chen honored the companies in a statement.

MEF’s Nan Chen

“MEF congratulates Comcast Business, PCCW Global, Spectrum Enterprise and Telia Company for achieving MEF, which is an important innovation milestone not only for each company but also for the industry at large,” Chen said. “We expect broad adoption of certified MEF 3.0 SD-WAN services and technologies will help fuel market growth and enable creation of powerful new hybrid networking solutions optimized for digital transformation.”

The certification program will become generally available in the upcoming months, according to MEF. You can learn more about the requirements it measures by reading this 32-page document provided by MEF.

Nuage Networks, Infovista and Versa Networks became the first technology vendors certified under MEF 3.0 earlier this year. Comcast partners with Versa for its ActiveCore SDN platform, and Spectrum Enterprise uses Nuage Networks.

“Becoming one of the first service providers to achieve MEF 3.0 SD-WAN certification underscores our commitment to being a technology and standards leader to improve the quality, management and interoperability of Ethernet and IP services for our customers,” said Bob Victor, Comcast Business’ senior vice president of product management. “We’re proud to lead the industry as the combination of SD-WAN, Ethernet and broadband connectivity displaces legacy networking and transport technologies.”

Spectrum in spring 2019 launched its software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) platform, which contain SD-WAN.

“As wide area networks evolve, enterprises can confidently partner with Spectrum Enterprise to guide them on their WAN journey and match the right SD-WAN design and access service to the client’s specific network needs and at the client’s preferred pace,” said Satya Parimi, Spectrum Enterprise’ group vice president of data products.

Telia Company calls itself the first European to offer SD-WAN, which it rolled out in 2017. We wrote last week about Telia Carrier, a subsidiary of the Swedish company, launching a new SD-WAN service via a Cisco Viptela partnership.

“Telia is proud to be one of the first service providers to have successfully achieved the MEF 3.0 SD-WAN certification milestone,” said Tomi Airola, Telia Company’s head of business networking. “We view our MEF 3.0 certification as a key step in addressing the requirements of our enterprise customers. Certification is especially important for helping customers simplify the process of selecting a service provider that is committed to standardized global services. SD-WAN has become an essential part of Telia’s managed services portfolio to accelerate our customers’ digital transformation journey.”

The telecommunications testing provider Spirent functioned as the MEF’s Authorized Certified Test Partner.

Vertical Systems Group Co-founder and Principal Rosemary Cochran, described MEF 3.0 certification as a “competitive differentiator” for the SD-WAN industry.

“Our research shows a direct relationship between a commitment to MEF certification and the business success of market leading companies,” Cochran said. “We anticipate similar results for MEF 3.0 SD-WAN certification.”