ONUG, the voice of the Global 2000, and MEF, the driving force enabling dynamic and assured services across automated networks, announce a joint collaboration to ensure that enterprises are provided with SD-WAN services optimized for digital transformation in the multi-cloud era. MEF will leverage ONUG's hybrid multi-cloud enterprise user requirements to accelerate development of MEF 3.0 SD-WAN managed services standards and related certification programs. For the first time, technology vendors, enterprise users and communications service providers will engage in a formal process to drive the development of SD-WAN service delivery models and standards. This work will lead to the development of ONUG reference solutions for SD-WAN deployment scenarios, which will benefit enterprise IT business leaders by serving as blueprints for evaluating alternatives and accelerating SD-WAN adoption.

SD-WAN is quickly becoming the enterprise standard for global communications infrastructure due to its elasticity and flexibility. ONUG's SD-WAN 2.0 Working Group is focused on addressing the challenges of integrating SD-WAN connectivity into enterprise hybrid multi-cloud environments. As part of its work, the working group developed a comprehensive reference architecture to define use case requirements for typical SD-WAN multi-cloud deployment scenarios, including multiple cloud provider connections, application performance assurance, scaling, security policy enforcement, hybrid environment security integration, and multi-domain connectivity orchestration.

"ONUG is eager to help define MEF 3.0 SD-WAN managed service standards to ensure that they address the critical requirements of the Global 2000 on their digital transformation journey," said Nick Lippis, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, ONUG. "The ONUG board welcomes communications service providers and managed service providers to join the ONUG Community and participate in the development of SD-WAN reference solutions, based on MEF standards, that will be featured in proof-of-concept demonstrations at future ONUG and MEF events. This collaboration between our organizations will be instrumental in helping enterprise technologists accelerate their adoption of SD-WAN products and services."

MEF recently published the industry's first global SD-WAN managed services standard in order to drive SD-WAN adoption and improve overall customer experience with hybrid networking solutions. MEF's SD-WAN Service Attributes and Services (MEF 70) standard describes requirements for an application-aware, over-the-top WAN connectivity service that uses policies to determine how application flows are directed over multiple underlay networks irrespective of the underlay technologies or service providers who deliver them.

"As adoption of SD-WANs accelerates, enterprises will increasingly choose managed services as a delivery model," said Lee Doyle, Principal Analyst, Doyle Research. "This collaboration between ONUG and MEF brings together key stakeholders to lead the market in developing SD-WAN standards, which will be critical to enabling the widespread adoption of SD-WAN services."

"I look forward to helping define enterprise requirements for critical SD-WAN use cases with my peers," said ONUG Board member Snehal Patel at Gap Inc. "Enterprises may either choose to deploy SD-WANs on their own or as a managed service. The ONUG-MEF collaboration will lead to new standards that enable enterprises to define rules for controlling how SD-WAN traffic will be handled on the service provider network."

As part of this collaboration, ONUG's enterprise use case requirements will directly influence MEF's ongoing SD-WAN projects so that the appropriate service specifications and certification can be further matured. ONUG and MEF will collaborate on the joint definition of common service models and APIs for automating SD-WAN services, with initial areas of focus including:

• ONUG SD-WAN 1.0 service models and API specifications
• ONUG SD-WAN 2.0 multi-cloud integration use cases
• Application security for SD-WANs
• Intent-based networking and service automation for SD-WANs

"ONUG is playing a vital role in determining the requirements for key enterprise SD-WAN use cases. This is a major step in ensuring that enterprise end users are provided with the services needed to enable digital transformation in the hybrid multi-cloud era," said Nan Chen, President, MEF. "Together, our communities can create a lasting impact in the industry and shape how innovative software-defined WAN services are developed, designed, and delivered."