The Metro Ethernet Forum launched its MEF 14 Service Provider Certification Program as a means to help enterprises feel confident that their providers’ Carrier Ethernet services can support mission critical and converged applications such as ERP, VoIP, videoconferencing and business continuity. MEF 14 (Abstract Test Suite for Traffic Management) ensures conformance to the MEF Quality of Service attributes, which provides a foundation for the implementation of Service Provider operational and performance SLA’s (Service Level Agreements) supporting simultaneous real-time and data-intensive business applications.
MEF 14 completes MEF 9 (Abstract Test Suite for Ethernet Services at the UNI) by adding requirements and test procedures for Service Performance and Bandwidth Profile Service Attributes defined in MEF-10. These include three EVC Related Performance Service Attributes. They are
–Service Performance
•Frame Delay Service Performance
•Frame Delay Variation Service Performance
•Frame Loss Ratio Service Performance
It also includes following Bandwidth Profile Service Attributes
–Bandwidth Profile Rate Enforcement
•Bandwidth Profile per Ingress UNI
•Bandwidth Profile per EVC
•Bandwidth Profile per Class of Service
•Multiple Bandwidth Profiles at the UNI
It covers test cases for the following Services
Benefits of MEF certification
For service providers
•Provides immediate assurance that supplier / vendor equipment is compliant to the MEF Carrier Ethernet standard
–Saves in-house testing, time and cost
– Accelerates speed of service deployments to customers
•Establishes solid foundation for Carrier Ethernet interoperability
•Enables service providers / carriers to focus important resources on provider specific testing or other needs rather than compliance testing
For Equipment Vendors:
•Provides clear and important international compliance guidelines and requirements for product development cycle
•Globally recognized interoperability standard improves ‘approval’ process, increases tender opportunities and reduces costs:
“Test Once Only” and receive automatic approvals..
– Reduces need for additional ‘interoperability / compliance testing’ by service providers and / or enterprises
–Certification recognized in the global market
For enterprises
•Empowers enterprise to make own informed decision regarding vendor equipment / CPE purchases
•Enterprises benefit from services provided by carriers’ networks with the MEF compliant equipment.
•Enterprises benefit from compliant service offerings
•Service Provider efficiencies and cost savings can be passed to end-users
What is pre-certification and why is it essential?
Before an equipment vendor takes the device for certification, the device can be tested for the complete MEF test suite in Afila lab. Thus Afila can run the whole suite and certify if the device will pass Certification. Pre-certification has many advantages:
• According to MEF, several vendors failed in first attempt and 1/5th couldn’t make it in time. Thus the risk of failure at the first attempt is very high. Equipment vendors might not necessarily have all the resources and expertise to test the whole suite in their labs. Pre certification solves this issue and removes the risks of failure.
• Pre-certification saves the costs related to subsequent certification attempts. If the device is not certified in first attempt, it costs the vendor much more to take the device for certification again. The vendor is assured certification at a very low cost saving his costs related to certification attempts.
• Vendors can receive active help in troubleshooting and detailed reports of failed cases. With pre-certification, vendors can troubleshoot and fix the bugs very easily.
• All the bugs can be fixed before going for the certification. Thus they receive guarantee for certification.
Afila Approach
To get more info on the approach Afila follows for MEF pre-certification test
Email: sales@afila.com
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