Sophia Antipolis, February 14, 2023 – In the last three months, ETSI ISG MEC has published its final phase 2 specification (GS MEC 015, on traffic management APIs) and has made significant progress in phase 3 with the release of a number of key specifications. including the MEC Federation Enablement APIs (GS MEC 040): This specification is particularly critical for supporting the GSMA OPG (Operator Platform Group) requirements to enable communication between MEC systems and allow 5G operators to communicate with each other Services collaborate with cloud providers and with other stakeholders.
New APIs are introduced to enable MEC federation, helping operators to “federate” edge computing resources by offering their MEC service capabilities for mutual use, application developers and end customers (e.g. vertical market segments).
Other great Phase 3 achievements include the release of an updated set of MEC Services APIs (GS MEC 013 on Location API and the new GS MEC 033 on IoT API); a study of MEC in the Park Enterprises deployment scenario (MEC 038); and Guidelines for Interoperability Testing (MEC-DEC 042).
“Industry is clearly looking at MEC technologies with increasing interest now,” notes Dario Sabella, Chair of the ETSI ISG MEC. “We see this in the continuously growing ETSI ISG MEC membership and also in the group’s remarkable progress in consolidating key activities for MEC Phase 3. The normative work in MEC (Multi-Access Edge Computing) continues as usual approach and commitment , to provide open standards in coordination with other SDOs, to avoid duplication of work and to encourage collaboration with relevant stakeholders, including industry associations and open source projects”.
MEC outdoor area
In addition, the group continues to improve its MEC Open Area (available here) by adding stable drafts and selected early drafts such as the GS MEC 011 and GS MEC 040 specifications, which are essential for the work in Phase 3, particularly in the view of the MEC Federation (and for collaboration with other bodies such as GSMA and 3GPP). This publicly accessible folder provides all stakeholders with visibility into ongoing ISG MEC progress on key deliverables.
MEC Hackathon, OpenAPI and MEC Sandbox
“With Phase 3 in full swing, the DECODE Working Group is very committed to supporting the ISG and showcasing their work with existing and exciting new initiatives,” notes Walter Featherstone, Chair of WG DECODE. “The development and usage of the MEC sandbox continues to expand, as demonstrated by the recent ETSI/LF Edge hackathon, which benefited from recent V2X information service-focused performance enhancements. Developing the group’s test support capabilities will also be a key issue in 2023.”
As a further demonstration of the collaboration that ETSI ISG MEC continues to nurture, in 2022 ETSI partnered with the Linux Foundation (LF Edge Akraino) to conduct their first joint hackathon. At this event, MEC application developers were asked to provide solutions built on top of the MEC APIs and the Akraino Blueprints. Selected finalists presented their solutions in a personal “pitch-off” to determine the overall winner at Edge Computing World (last day of the event in October).
OpenAPI compliant descriptions are available for all phase 2 APIs at ETSI Forge and via the MEC sandbox, both of which will be further enhanced by the phase 3 activities. The MEC Sandbox provides an interactive environment that allows edge application developers to learn and experiment with MEC Service APIs from anywhere in the world. With an emulated edge network in Monaco, the sandbox implements key MEC services and features, including support for MEC platforms that are geographically distributed within the MEC Sandbox’s edge network.
In the future, ISG MEC will further promote its collaboration with other SDOs (e.g. 3GPP, ITU), industry groups (e.g. GSMA, 5GAA) and open source projects (e.g. LF, Eclipse).
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