MEF and TM Forum announced a joint initiative to align their respective API and product and service models. This collaboration aims to streamline automation for MEF Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) implementations across a global partner ecosystem. The initiative will integrate MEF’s Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) APIs with TM Forum’s Gen5 Open API standards, using Domain Context Specialization (DCS) to support standardized MEF-defined models. The goal is to create a unified, standardized approach that enhances automation within MEF’s NaaS domain by the end of 2025.
MEF NaaS services include a range of on-demand connectivity options such as Carrier Ethernet and IP, application assurance through SD-WAN and E2E network slicing, and cybersecurity capabilities including SASE, SSE, and ZTNA. Additionally, these services extend to multi-cloud environments for multi-access edge computing (MEC) and cloud connectivity. MEF will design its product and service models to conform to TM Forum’s Gen5 API DCS design patterns and governance, ensuring compatibility and streamlined automation.
TM Forum will contribute its suite of automation assets, including the Open Digital Architecture, Gen5 Domain Context Specialization APIs, and the NaaS TMF909 API suite. These assets will provide an abstraction layer that maps NaaS services to network resources regardless of vendor implementation. This collaboration addresses the digital infrastructure sector’s current challenge of proprietary and non-standard API implementations, which hinder scalability and automation.
By standardizing APIs, the initiative aims to reduce market confusion, cut capex and opex costs, and accelerate time to revenue. MEF’s LSO APIs currently facilitate extensive interoperability and automation of business and operational functions among ecosystem partners. With more than 160 service providers adopting MEF APIs and TM Forum’s portfolio of over 80 Open APIs achieving widespread industry adoption, this collaboration is set to advance digital services for enterprises through industry-wide standardization.
Key Points:
- MEF and TM Forum are collaborating to align their API and service models.
- The initiative targets automation for MEF NaaS implementations across a global partner ecosystem.
- MEF will conform its LSO APIs to TM Forum’s Gen5 Open API standards using Domain Context Specialization (DCS).
- TM Forum will provide its Open Digital Architecture, Gen5 Domain Context Specialization APIs, and NaaS TMF909 API suite.
- Standardized APIs will address the issue of non-scalable proprietary implementations.
- MEF and TM Forum’s collaboration will deliver a full API suite for automation by the end of 2025, benefiting over 160 service providers and leveraging TM Forum’s Open APIs.
“Enterprises expect the same agility in network services from NaaS that they experience with cloud. MEF’s widely adopted LSO API product and service schemas are crucial to meeting these expectations,” said Pascal Menezes, CTO, MEF. “Our expanded collaboration with TM Forum to align on common APIs and data models empowers service providers to automate the full lifecycle delivery of complex multi-provider NaaS services with the ease, agility and responsiveness businesses expect in the cloud era.”
“True end-to-end automation requires industry-wide collaboration on common specifications to enable automated service delivery across the broader telecommunications ecosystem,” said George Glass, CTO, TM Forum. “Our work with MEF serves as a blueprint for other domains facing similar multi-partner integration challenges as we continue collaborating to drive industry-wide standardization.”
