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Lumen CTO on automating and standardizing network infrastructure

Season 2

DENVER – MEF Annual Members Event – Lumen's sights are set on developing a customer experience where connectivity service orders are placed through a portal or API for a more digital, automated experience, Andrew Dugan, CTO of Lumen Technologies, told Light Reading.


Accomplishing that goal requires automation of Lumen's infrastructure via the use of APIs, said Dugan. He added that the service provider is currently partnering with an enterprise customer on testing and deploying MEF's Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) APIs.


In addition to explaining how Lumen is utilizing the LSO APIs, Dugan shared updates on developments of MEF's standards for SD-WAN and SASE.


You can download an unedited transcript of the podcast here. If you want to skip around and listen, here are a few more things covered in this interview:

  • Lumen's experience implementing LSO APIs for automation of business functions (00:34)
  • Impact of MEF's efforts to standardize SD-WAN and SASE on how operators deploy those services (02:55)
  • Importance of a SASE definition to clear up confusion in the industry (05:00)
  • Impact of hybrid workforce trend on SD-WAN and SASE deployments (06:20)
  • MEF passes W128 security standard for LSO APIs (08:00)
  • Differences between zero trust and zero trust network access (08:36)
  • Future developments of APIs (09:52)
  • Use of blockchain for managing transactions between service providers and enterprise customers (11:17)


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