More than 40 prestigious awards recognizing service, application, technology, and professional excellence
Los Angeles, 11 October June 2018 – MEF, the driving force enabling assured services across automated networks, today announced Finalists for the 2018 MEF Awards, which recognize service, application, technology, and professional excellence and innovation. MEF’s awards program is the largest in the world focused on emerging dynamic network services powered by LSO (Lifecycle Service Orchestration), SDN, NFV, SD-WAN, and Carrier Ethernet technologies.
Award Winners will be revealed at the MEF18 global networking event, held 29 October – 2 November 2018 at the JW Marriott LA LIVE Hotel in Los Angeles, California. Finalists and Winners will be celebrated during the MEF Awards Gala Dinner , 7:30pm – 10:00pm on 30 October, except for the Proof of Concept Winners who will be announced on the evening of 31 October.
Register here for MEF18 and the Awards Dinner (black tie / cocktail attire).
“We are pleased to congratulate more than 30 companies for being chosen as 2018 Awards Finalists,” said Nan Chen, President, MEF. “We appreciate the diligent work of the dozens of companies who made submissions for this year’s program, and we look forward to recognizing the standout service and technology leaders at MEF18.”
Judges for the 2018 MEF Awards include global and regional senior analysts from ACG Research, ATLANTIC-ACM, Battle Green Research, Dell’Oro, Frost & Sullivan, Futuriom, IHS Markit, Ovum, and Vertical Systems, along with independent judges.
Service Provider Awards Finalists recognize leadership in the delivery of global, regional, retail, and wholesale services, as well as excellence in network and service innovation, SD-WAN managed services, LSO, and marketing.
Enterprise Application Awards Finalists recognize the most innovative use of MEF 3.0 / Carrier Ethernet services to meet application requirements of industry verticals, including finance, health, education, government, sports and entertainment, media, retail, and other categories.
Technology Solutions Awards Finalists recognize leadership in LSO, service automation, service assurance, service analytics, SD-WAN, Carrier Ethernet/IP, NFV, optical, and multi-vendor technology solutions. This year, we also will recognize a technology provider of the year.
Proof of Concept Awards recognize the MEF18 Proof of Concept (PoC) demonstrations that best showcase the ability to orchestrate dynamic and assured services across automated, virtualized, and interconnected networks in accordance with the MEF 3.0 framework . More than 50 companies are participating in 19 PoCs this year. A special PoC Awards ceremony in the MEF18 Networking Hall during the evening of 31 October will recognize Gold, Silver, and Bronze PoC Award Winners as well as the Winner of the 2018 MEF 3.0 Implementation Project Award.
Professional Awards recognize individuals who have exhibited professional excellence and advanced the work of MEF and the development of MEF 3.0 solutions. The three Awards in this category include Industry Executive of the Year, MEF Distinguished Fellow and the Certified Professional of the Year. Professional Award Winners will be announced at the MEF Awards Dinner.
About MEF18
MEF18 focuses on enabling agile, assured, and orchestrated communications services for the digital economy. MEF has a target audience of 1,000+ attendees from 275+ companies and 35+ countries; 250+ service and technology executives; 120 expert speakers, 125+ sponsors and partners; and more. MEF18’s content, networking, and special activities are designed to appeal to executives and other senior experts from communication and cloud service providers; enterprises; government organizations; network technology suppliers; systems integrators, open source projects, standards organizations; industry and financial analysts; investors; the press; and others.
MEF18’s program will build upon popular elements of last year’s event while introducing several new activities. Elements include: world-class plenaries and sessions with service, technology, and enterprise expert speakers; MEF Workshops; the WAN Exchange (brought by WAN Summit); PoC demonstrations; MEF 3.0 implementation demonstrations; a vibrant Networking Hall; MEF Awards Dinner; Global Media Hub; LSO Hackathon; and on-site MEF professional certification exam preparation courses. This year, the 4Q18 MEF Members Meeting will be collocated with MEF18. For more information: http://www.MEF18event.com.
Sponsorship Opportunities
For sponsorship information, please visit the MEF18 Sponsor Price List and Sponsorships and Benefits pages or email Alysia Bennett at alysia@mef.net.
About MEF
An industry association of 200+ member companies, MEF has introduced the MEF 3.0 transformational global services framework for defining, delivering, and certifying assured services orchestrated across a global ecosystem of automated networks. MEF 3.0 services are designed to provide an on-demand, cloud-centric experience with user- and application-directed control over network resources and service capabilities. MEF 3.0 services are delivered over automated, virtualized, and interconnected networks powered by LSO, SDN, and NFV. MEF produces service specifications, LSO frameworks, open LSO APIs, software-driven reference implementations, and certification programs. MEF 3.0 work will enable automated delivery of standardized Carrier Ethernet, Optical Transport, IP, SD-WAN, and Layer 4-7 services across multiple provider networks. For more information: https://www.mef.net.
Media Contact:
Ashley Schulte
Witz Communications for MEF
ashley@witzcommunications.com