The MEF Software Developer Community is a program run by the MEF in which undergraduates and graduates in academic institutions participate in short focused 'virtual' internships with service providers and technology providers in the telecoms industry.
Opportunities for Students and Graduates
MEF offers unique opportunities to students and graduates to participate in ongoing MEF software development and modelling projects that are having profound and immediate impact on the connectivity and cloud services industry. These projects involve MEF member companies including major global service providers and technology providers, and touch on the latest in standards work including LSO, SDN and NFV.
Benefits for Students and Graduates
By being a part of the MEF Software Developer Community, students enjoy the following benefits:
- Putting the knowledge acquired in their studies to practical use with immediate impact on the industry.
- Access to the latest industry practices and thinking.
- Participation in cutting edge work in projects scoped by the world's leading service providers and technology providers and mentored by MEF member companies.
- Exposure to potential future employers and research partners.
- Enhancement of their resumes and raising of their personal profile.
Benefits for the MEF and the Telecoms Industry
The benefits for the MEF and the telecom industry as a whole include:
- Acceleration of availability of open standardized APIs
- Creation of micro-services and reference implementations that strengthen development and enhancement of specifications
- Increased awareness and understanding of LSO among the next generation of software, network, operations and business application experts entering the market.
Projects for Students and Graduates
There are a wide range of projects that students and graduates can work on during one, two or three semesters depending on the project. The menu of these MEF projects is constantly evolving and can be adapted to include new opportunities in line with specific requests. MEF can work together with the relevant staff at the student's academic organization to ensure that credits are received for work on these projects.
Current areas of work
- Rules engine development (i.e., MEF 10.3; MEF 26.1; MEF 45) for service decomposition.
- Path computation and path selection using graph theory applied to development of Topology Engine.
- Data science/engineering applied to Inventory Engine and data analytics for SLAs, etc.
- Pub/Sub pattern applied towards fault and performance management (additional info to be supplied by Donald Hunter)
- Develop micro-services on the LSO Innovation Platform for functional blocks within SOF.
JIRA is used to scope out the project for development work in agile methodology (e.g. sprints) and to track the achievements of individual students in such a way that supervisors can assess their success.
All contributions of code by students are under Apache 2.0 licensing (see Code Contribution Agreement)
Typical Requirements for Software Developers
The following highlight the backgrounds required and preferred to participate in the projects listed below. Note that some requirements relate only to specific projects.- Studying Information or Computer Science, Telematics, Networking, Internet or Web Engineering
- Practical experience in developing sofware in Java 8, Javascript - node.js and Python
- Prior knowledge of tools like Spring Boot and implementation approaches like Micro-Services
- At least basic knowledge of networking (e.g. Carrier Ethernet, IP, MPLS etc.)
- UML and/or YANG modeling experience
- HCI or User Interface design experience
- Preferred: Familiarity with MEF terminology and specs
- Preferred: Experience working with Open Source projects (e.g. OpenStack, OpenDaylight, OPNFV, ON.Lab)
- Preferred: Experience using OpenStack solutions
Service Decomposition Project
A central project relates to fulfilling services via Presto.
Additional Projects
Inter-Carrier Serviceability
Developers will write code in sprints defined and led by MEF member companies that will implement business requirements and processes defined by Service Provider MEF members for checking serviceability of wholesale services (e.g. E-Access and E-Transit) in an M2M environment across open APIs defined by the MEF at LSO Sonata and LSO Interlude.
Inter-Carrier Product Ordering
Developers will write code in sprints defined and led by MEF member companies that will implement business requirements and processes defined by Service Provider MEF members for ordering of wholesale services (e.g. E-Access and E-Transit) in an M2M environment across open APIs defined by the MEF at LSO Sonata and LSO Interlude.
Inter-Carrier Product Activation and Configuration
Developers will write code in sprints defined and led by MEF member companies that will implement business requirements and processes defined by Service Provider MEF members for activation and configuration of wholesale services (e.g. E-Access and E-Transit) in an M2M environment across open APIs defined by the MEF at LSO Sonata and LSO Interlude .
Inter-Carrier Invoicing
Developers will write code in sprints defined and led by MEF member companies that will implement business requirements and processes defined by Service Provider MEF members for invoicing (including billing) of wholesale services (e.g. E-Access and E-Transit) in an M2M environment across open APIs defined by the MEF at LSO Sonata and LSO Interlude.
Inter-Carrier Assurance
Developers will write code in sprints defined and led by MEF member companies that will implement business requirements and processes defined by Service Provider MEF members for all aspects of service assurance (e.g. trouble ticketing) of wholesale services (e.g. E-Access and E-Transit) in an M2M environment across open APIs defined by the MEF at LSO Sonata and LSO Interlude.
Inter-Carrier Security
Developers will write code in sprints defined and led by MEF member companies that will test the vulnerability of open APIs defined by the MEF at the M2M interfaces between Carriers.
Intra-Carrier Network Data Collection
Developers will write code in sprints defined and led by MEF member companies to collect data from networks based on different technology domains (e.g. CORD, Packet WAN, Optical Transport, 5G, SD WAN) for use in assessing the performance of the network as defined in MEF specifications (e.g. MEF 30.1, MEF 35.1)
Inter-Carrier Network Data Collection
Developers will write code in sprints defined and led by MEF member companies to collect data from wholesale Operators for use in assessing the performance of the wholesale service as defined in MEF specifications (e.g. MEF 30.1 , MEF 35.1)
LSO Orchestratable SDN Controllers
Developers will write code in sprints defined and led by MEF member companies to enable SDN Controllers (e.g. OpenDaylight, ONOS, OpenContrail) to be orchestrated via open APIs at LSO Presto (i.e. develop LSO Presto plugins for Open Source controllers)
LSO Orchestratable NFV Orchestrators
Developers will write code in sprints defined and led by MEF member companies to enable NFVOs to be LSO orchestrated (e.g. OPNFV MANO, ETSI MANO)
User Portal
Developers will write code in sprints defined and led by MEF member companies to be used in sample user portals to manage MEF-defined services via open APIs the fulfillment and control phases of a service lifecycle.
Interested students, graduates and academic institutions should contact Daniel Bar-Lev for more information on how to be a part of the MEF Software Developer Community.
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