The Open Networking User Group (ONUG) today announced a collaboration with MEF to accelerate the standardization and adoption of SD-WAN technologies. The partnership is centered around ensuring that SD-WAN vendors are developing products that meet the needs of both enterprises and the service providers that serve them.

“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 at ONUG, in a statement. "This collaboration between our organizations will be instrumental in helping enterprise technologists accelerate their adoption of SD-WAN products and services.”

ONUG represents the enterprise voice while MEF represents that of service providers, said MEF CTO Pascal Menezes. "Collaboratively we want to move the industry forward," he said.

ONUG is looking to help identify the features that are critical to enterprise users so they can be integrated into MEF's SD-WAN standards and certifications, which is part of MEF's SD-WAN definition that it unveiled in August.

"The output of that will be better certification, better standards that meet the enterprise requirements," Menezes said. "The goal is to impact the SD-WAN industry to get it further adopted, create more rigor in standards, and a language that everyone can understand."

ONUG also sees the opportunity to develop a series of SD-WAN reference solutions — kind of like blueprints or a road map — that IT teams can use to help evaluate and deploy an SD-WAN.

Steven Collins, working group CTO at ONUG, said that comparing current SD-WAN solutions isn't always easy and given the crowded market there is a lot of confusion. "There are so many different offerings and there aren't really common service delivery models and there aren't really standards and that just creates friction," Collins said.

Both Menezes and Collins agree that language remains a clear barrier for enterprises and service providers.

According to Menezes, this collaboration should help enterprises better understand what it is they are buying and help the service providers understand what it is they need to deliver in a managed SD-WAN offering.

“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,” added MEF President Nan Chen in a statement.