Sophia Antipolis, 6 July 2017

Facilitating interoperability to advance MEC deployment

Today, the ETSI Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) Industry Specification Group (ISG) has achieved a major milestone with the release of a first package of standardized Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to support edge computing interoperability.

The five ETSI Group Specifications - GS MEC 009, GS MEC 010-2, GS MEC 011, GS MEC 012 and GS MEC 013 - address general principles for mobile edge service APIs, application lifecycle management, mobile edge platform application enablement, Radio Network Information API and Location API.

The MEC application enablement framework is a generic framework which is applicable to every environment aimed at opening up the network and exposing information towards authorized third-party applications. Utilizing a unique application enablement (API) framework across the industry ensures common practices and interoperability for developers when interfacing their applications with the operator’s system. This promotes innovation and accelerates development of third-party applications, enabling operators to further capitalize on their network investments.

The MEC API principles specify a generic set of API design principles and patterns, as well as guidance for their documentation. Compliance with these principles ensures consistency across APIs. The work was inspired by TM Forum and Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) work, as well as approaches currently used in developer communities.

The release also includes APIs for two key value-adding MEC services: Radio Network Information Service (RNIS) and Location Service (LS). The RNIS is a service that provides radio network related information to MEC applications and to MEC platforms. Such information may be used to optimize existing services and used as an input to new types of services utilizing the real-time access to radio conditions and related events. The LS leverages the Zonal Presence service developed by Small Cell Forum (SCF) and is built upon the OMA specification "RESTful Network API for Zonal Presence”. Additional service APIs, including an API for bandwidth management are expected to be released shortly.