Abstract
"The MEF's Third Network, based on network as a service principles, combines the on-demand agility and ubiquity of the Internet with the performance and security assurances of Carrier Ethernet 2.0 (CE 2.0). The Third Network will enable services between not only physical service endpoints used today, such as Ethernet ports (UNIs), but also virtual service endpoints running on a blade server in the cloud to connect to Virtual Machines (VMs) or Virtual Network Functions (VNFs). The MEF will achieve this vision by building upon its successful CE 2.0 foundation by defining Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) capabilities and supporting Application Program Interfaces (APIs). The MEF will define functional requirements and APIs for LSO that support capabilities for fulfillment, control, performance, assurance, usage, security, analytics, and policy across multi-operator networks. This approach overcomes existing complexity by defining service abstractions that hide the complexity of underlying technologies and network layers from the applications and users of the services. The purpose of this white paper is to identify the essential LSO and management capabilities necessary to achieve the key aims of the Third Network to deliver network as a service."