ITEM: The Metro Ethernet Forum has revealed the first twenty (20) vendors whose products have been certified for its Carrier Ethernet 2.0 spec.
And they are: 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.
The MEF released the list during its Q1 2013 meeting in San Diego.
Carrier Ethernet 2.0, you will remember, adds new features to Carrier Ethernet, including multiple classes of service, greater manageability and easier interconnect for eight standard service types – all of which is geared in particular to enable better efficiencies for mobile backhaul and establish Carrier Ethernet as a business class cloud service carrier.
My favorite part of the announcement is the part where Bob Mandeville, president and founder of test lab Iometrix (which is responsible for MEF's testing process), assures us that they don’t certify just anyone:
"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.”
Also, interestingly, according to FierceTelecom, the test plan for CE 2.0 drove vendors to focus initially on developing equipment that can support two new services – E-Tree and E-Access – in addition to enhancing existing CE 1.0 E-Line and E-LAN services.
The CE 2.0 test plan also takes into consideration network management, with 68 test cases dedicated to service Operation Administration and Maintenance (OAM) and the ability of Multi-CoS Ethernet to support "bursty" traffic.
Although vendors can develop equipment that only supports a portion of the CE 2.0 services, most of them have built their equipment to support all eight of the services covered under the new specification.
"The reason for that is for a vendor that is a NID [network interface device], for example, may not necessarily require all of the services, but the majority of the products tested have passed all of the services," [MEF president Nan] Chen said.