One year after launching its Carrier Ethernet 2.0 initiative, the Metro Ethernet Forum announced significant progress in its efforts to drive the next wave of Ethernet service delivery.
Whereas the first generation of Carrier Ethernet standardized E-Line and E-LAN services, CE 2.0 standardizes Multi-CoS over eight interconnected services, including two versions of E-Line, E-LAN, E-Tree and E-Access. Newly defined Multi-CoS extensions ensure standardized performance objectives across geographic boundaries, resulting in improved QoS and optimized efficiency on a global scale. New interconnect specifications extend the reach between carriers, and new management specifications provide scalability and measurability not previously possible. A new Mobile Backhaul Implementation Agreement creates a standard for 4G mobile backhaul services through Multi-CoS-enable interconnects.
At the Americas Ethernet Summit in San Diego, the MEF announced that the first twenty equipment vendors have been certified as Carrier Ethernet 2.0 compliant: Accedian, Altera, BTI Systems, Ciena, Cisco, Cyan, FibroLAN, Huawei, Infinera, Juniper Networks, MRV, Omnitron, Overture, PT Inovacao, Pulsecom, RAD Data Communications, Telco Systems, Tellabs, Transition Networks and Transmode.
“CE 2.0 is a difficult accreditation to achieve. To be recognised as CE 2.0 certified, each company must pass a suite that totals 634 stringent tests. Over 155 companies are now certified for CE 1.0 and the adoption signs for 2.0 are exciting. The demand for certified products and services is a driving force, and we expect a significant increase in service provider certifications not only from established markets, but also from developing economies in 2013,” stated Bob Mandeville President and Founder of test lab Iometrix, responsible for MEF’s testing process.
“The main market drivers continue to dominate business: bandwidth growth, mobile data and LTE migration and the growth of public and private cloud computing,” stated Nan Chen, MEF President.
Some other notes from the Americas Carrier Ethernet Summit:
- IDC: over 1.2 billion new Ethernet ports were shipped last year (400 million wired and 800 million wireless)
- Frost & Sullivan, Vertical Systems and Infonetics: Carrier Ethernet services will be a near $48+ billion services market by 2015.
- A lot of discussion is underway on how to leverage CE 2.0 for cloud services, including for data center interconnects and private-public cloud bursting. The fundamental building blocks are there but more work will be needed including specifying a path to software-defined networking through open APIs and Dynamic Responsive Ethernet (DRE) or Carrier Ethernet 4 Cloud (a draft document is underway to identify the attributes).
- CE 2.0’s Multi-CoS capability is useful for small cell backhaul. Widespread rollout of small cells will need guaranteed bandwidth.
- Ethernet’s 40th birthday is coming up this May. Watch for events from Metro Ethernet Forum, PARC and the Computer History Museum of Silicon Valley.
- CE 2.0 Certification is built on MEF specifications and 1,000s of technical contributions.
