- MEF rebrands to Mplify Alliance to expand its reach beyond just telecom
- It’s doubling down on standards for AI-capable network-as-a-service (NaaS) and APIs
- Despite the new name, Mplify will still work on Ethernet specs
Industry standards group MEF is taking its focus on AI and network-as-a-service (NaaS) to the next level. To start, it’s ditching the outdated “MEF” moniker for a fresh new name – Mplify Alliance.
The rebrand really is about highlighting the “broader ecosystem” required to enable NaaS on the global scale, according to Mplify COO Kevin Vachon. The organization’s 200 members are comprised of not only telecom service providers but also enterprises, cloud providers, data centers, technology providers and systems integrators.
With all those players in mind, “the reference to metro Ethernet just doesn’t make sense anymore,” Vachon told Fierce.
“It’s just very limiting and for many people that maybe don’t know what we’re doing, they still see us in a limited way, which slows down our progress," he said.
Founded in 2001, MEF (known as Metro Ethernet Forum until 2016) initially focused on developing standards to help service providers extend Ethernet connectivity beyond local area networks (LANs). As technology advanced, the org branched out from Carrier Ethernet to areas like SD-WAN, Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO), SASE and now NaaS.
The latter is “the main thing everybody is trying to figure out" as companies prep their networks for AI applications, said Vachon.
Of the 200 Mplify member companies, he noted 135 of those are service providers thinking about how to best use their physical assets so that they’re not “left behind” in the AI race.
What Mplify does for APIs
What Mplify wants to do is help NaaS providers – and service providers in general – deliver network capabilities specific to AI requirements. Application programming interfaces (APIs) are a big part of that, Vachon explained, as they allow enterprises to “[specify] what they want” when it comes to AI Model-as-a-service, GPU-as-a-service and all the other flavors of NaaS.
Mplify has been a busy bee on the open API front. It’s collaborating with GSMA to create network APIs that let application developers access network infrastructure across both mobile and fixed networks more easily. That makes sense, given how prevalent the “convergence” buzzword has become in the telecom world.
Interoperability between wireline and wireless networks is its own challenge. It’s even trickier to get APIs and network services to work seamlessly when you have cloud providers, systems integrators and others all in the mix.
“Without standards to glue those ecosystems together, it’s basically a nightmare and it’s going to take a long time,” Vachon said. “[If a provider] has to integrate with 100 different flavors of APIs to different types of companies…it doesn’t work.”
Ethernet roots remain
Despite doubling down on AI and NaaS, Mplify isn’t totally ditching its Ethernet roots. It will still provide and update standards and certifications for Carrier Ethernet services. Vertical Systems Group has noted the Ethernet market continues to grow due to “strong demand” for dedicated internet access (DIA), which is key for AI, cloud and managed SD-WAN applications.
“Some of our member companies, they sell Ethernet, they might automate it. They might sell security as part of their offering,” Vachon said. “Some are more aggressive [in moving] to NaaS, others are less.”
Regardless of where they’re at with tech adoption, the point is “we’re there to help companies go along that journey,” he concluded.