If you lease capacity to extend your network across carrier facilities and don't want to lose visibility and control, the new Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) External Network to Network Interface (ENNI) standard might ease your mind.

Network World — If you lease capacity to extend your network across carrier facilities and don't want to lose visibility and control, the new Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) External Network to Network Interface (ENNI) standard might ease your mind.

ENNI provides an industry standard way to quickly and seamlessly connect enterprise networks with carrier Ethernet facilities, ensuring faster rollout and advanced visibility across virtualized network connections.

BACKGROUND: Metro Ethernet Forum celebrates 10 years of key network accomplishments

Enterprises faced with the challenge of supporting a global workforce and the need to provide access to an expansive library of online applications and media rich content, require network controls they grew accustomed to with local area networks. ENNI provides this visibility and control over service performance, and helps customers build and manage networks for a "24x7x365" economy.

The challenge is that no single network has ubiquitous coverage. Service providers seek out partners to ensure global service coverage and need to interconnect with others at a local, regional and international level. Through ENNI, service providers can facilitate global coverage via a standard connection to local, regional and international networks. With global adoption of ENNI, the stage is set for seamless reach to remote offices, corporate headquarters, data centers and more.

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The Metro Ethernet Forum's (MEF's) upcoming adoption, E-Access, will be used to address issues left behind by its last adoption of a "Phase One" External Network-to-Network Interconnection (ENNI) standard that was meant to ensure smoother interoperability, according to the latest report from Heavy Reading Insider (www.heavyreading.com/insider), a paid research service of Heavy Reading (www.heavyreading.com).
 
Ethernet Interop Center Stage 2012: MEF Builds on ENNI With E-Access identifies and analyzes progress made toward developing a standardized approach to Carrier Ethernet interconnection, focusing on the role played by the MEF in supporting Ethernet interconnect. The report assesses the role that the new E-Access standard will play in facilitating Carrier Ethernet service interconnection. It also updates the status of Carrier Ethernet exchange (CEE) services and evaluates the role that exchanges will have in Ethernet service interconnect.

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Speaking at the recent NetEvents 2011 APAC Press & Analyst Summit in Thailand, MEF President Nan Chen outlined the proceedings of the MEF’s last quarterly meeting for 2011, held in Singapore last month, and their particular relevance for APAC business. Key issues for the region include Carrier Ethernet Multiple Classes of Service (Multi-CoS), Ethernet mobile backhaul, and the rise of wholesale Ethernet services – and all three issues were addressed by new technical specifications progressed at the Quarterly meeting. He also announced strong support for the new MEF Carrier Ethernet Certified Professional (CECP) certification program, which is already boosting the skills availability in a highly competitive market. Nan Chen explained how the letter ballot acceptance of the MEF’s Phase 2 on Multi-CoS and Mobile Backhaul Implementation Agreements – extending MEF 23 and MEF 22 respectively – is an especially important issue for the region where, without a strong legacy network of fixed line connections, it is doubly attractive to leapfrog traditional leased line connections from cell cites to core network and go for an all-Ethernet solution. According to Infonetics’ Michael Howard: “IP/Ethernet MBH is the universally accepted solution to lower the costs of growing mobile data traffic, and to facilitate migration to next generation all-IP/Ethernet networks. This two Implementation Agreements will be especially welcome for addressing explosive growth of mobile Internet traffic, as well as pointing the way to simpler 4G migration.”

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Ethernet has become the carrier market's fastest-growing service worldwide and its reach has become increasingly comprehensive and global. Ethernet has increasingly expanded far beyond the enclosed single-carrier service "islands" within which it first developed, requiring connections across multiple carrier networks both locally and globally.

Emphasis within the Ethernet market – and the sector's lead trade/standards organization, the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) – has shifted increasingly to issues of interconnection and service alignment between providers. Pre-standards interconnection agreements (sometimes called "virtual ENNIs") between provider pairs, typically with each carrier using proprietary service variants and Class of Service (CoS) structures, have been complex, costly and time-consuming to negotiate and implement, constraining Ethernet development below its potential despite very rapid growth.

While the MEF's adoption last year of a "Phase One" External Network-to-Network Interconnection (ENNI) standard was meant to ensure smoother interoperability, it left major ambiguities, which the new pending MEF E-Access service standard – projected for January 2012 adoption – attempts to address more comprehensively. As a more definitive implementation guide, E-Access will mark another major step toward standardizing Ethernet interconnection and so potentially enhancing service competition and availability, variety and quality worldwide.

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【CNW.com.cn专稿】在近期举行的2011年度NetEvents亚太区媒体和分析师峰会期间，MEF总裁陈子湳发表演讲，对今年10月在新加坡举行的MEF 2011季度会议进程，以及与他们特别相关的亚太区业务进行了扼要介绍。该区域的主要议题包括：运营商级以太网的多等级服务(Multi-CoS)，以太网移动回程，以及崛起的以太网批发服务——而且所有这三个问题都被在季度会议上取得进展的新技术规范所解决。他同时宣布了对最新的MEF运营商级以太网认证专业人士(CECP)认证计划的强烈支持，该计划已经在高度竞争的市场中帮助提升了可用技能。

陈子湳还介绍了MEF“多等级服务”和“移动回程”两大实施协议第二阶段的投票和接纳过程，这两大协议分别扩展了MEF 23和MEF 22标准，对于没有强大传统固定线路连接的网络之地区，这是一个特别重要的问题。因此对于跨过从基站到核心网的传统专线连接，直接采用全以太网解决方案，具有双重的吸引力。

Infonetics咨询公司的Michael Howard表示：“基于IP/以太网的移动回程，在降低因移动数据流量暴涨而带来的成本、驱动下一代基于全IP/以太网的网络演进方面，成为被业界普遍接纳的解决方案。这两大实施协议在解决移动互联网流量爆炸性增长，以及以更简捷的策略向4G网络迁移方面，将大受欢迎。”

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