Vodacom Business has become the first telecommunications operator in Africa to achieve the prestigious MEF3.0 SD-WAN certification. This certification enables providers to confirm that their solutions comply with the highest industry standards for performance, assurance and agility.

“The MEF3.0 certification underscores Vodacom Business’s commitment to being a technology and standards leader which improves the quality, management and interoperability of Ethernet and IP services for all our clients across the continent. The accolade highlights that Vodacom Business offers best-in-class SD-WAN service offerings,” says Marten Scheffer, managing executive for enterprise technology and FTTx at Vodacom Business.

“MEF congratulates Vodacom Business for achieving MEF3.0 SD-WAN certification, a milestone for industry innovation, particularly in the African markets the company serves,” says Nan Chen, president of the MEF. “Vodacom’s business clients can have confidence that the company’s SD-WAN offering has passed a rigorous set of tests demonstrating alignment with well-developed standards created by the world’s authority for standardised network services.”

MEF’s certification programmes are designed to accelerate availability and adoption of MEF3.0 solutions that address the most demanding networking needs of the digital economy. Apart from strengthening client confidence in Vodacom Business’s ability to create powerful hybrid networking solutions by delivering overlay SD-WAN services that are coupled with high-performance underlay connectivity services, the MEF3.0 SD-WAN certification provides additional benefits to clients including:

Streamlines buying decision process. MEF3.0 certification reduces the time, effort, and cost for clients to evaluate SD-WAN providers. Clients will have a reference to help determine if a service meets their requirements for SD-WAN use cases, saving time previously spent on client proof of concepts and trials to demonstrate use cases.
Basis for standardising SLAs. Certification testing enables standardisation of service-level agreements (SLAs) between Vodacom Business and SD-WAN subscribers.
Foundation for innovation. Establishes a core set of required capabilities upon which differentiated offerings tailored for end-user needs can be built.

The MEF3.0 SD-WAN certification doesn’t only hold benefits and peace of mind for clients. Several benefits have already been derived from a service provisioning, operating and support perspective which include:

Accelerated service deployment. Standardised SD-WAN service functionality is normalised, pre-tested and verified. Internal coordination among different departments is facilitated with certified services and technologies.
Faster RFI/RFP response. Demonstrating conformance with rigorous test requirements for service attributes, functions and capabilities reduces time and operational costs when responding to RFIs/RFPs. Vodacom’s presence in MEF’s Service Certification Registry also simplifies and accelerates evaluation with new customers.

The real benefits lie in what has been demonstrated through the Vodacom Business certification journey, and what has been certified:

Application-aware networking. SD-WAN services can identify traffic based on application or application group and route accordingly.
Policy driven. Ability for network administrators to configure in advance what traffic is prioritised and directed, thereby simplifying and automating network management.
Direct Internet breakout. SD-WAN services have verified the ability to break out Internet traffic directly at the branch.
Multiple underlay options. Allowing clients to select from multiple underlay connectivity service options, while maintaining a secure SD-WAN.

About Vodacom Business
Vodacom Business Services, a division of Vodacom South Africa, is a leading next-generation network provider operating on a single business driver that understands business voice, video and data requirements. Established in 2008, Vodacom Business Services delivers total communication solutions tailored to the needs of the public sector and large, medium and small companies. Solutions extend from mobile to fixed-line access mediums, virtual private networks, voice over IP, hosted facilities, cloud computing-based hosted services, storage, backup, security and application solutions. Vodacom is majority owned by Vodafone, one of the world’s largest mobile communications companies by revenue, and is listed on the JSE under the symbol VOD.

About MEF
MEF is an industry association that is driving development of a global federation of network, cloud and technology providers supporting dynamic, assured and certified network services that drive enterprise digital transformation. MEF 3.0 SD-WAN certification enables service and technology providers to validate their SD-WAN services and solutions as conforming with MEF’s SD-WAN Service Attributes and Services (MEF 70) standard. For additional information on MEF, visit www.mef.net.