OIF Finalizes Security Implementation Agreement

New Board of Directors and Officers Elected

FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) approved a new Implementation Agreement (IA) addressing Security Extensions to UNI and E-NNI 2.0. The new IA defines a common security extension for securing the control plane protocols specified in the OIF’s UNI and E-NNI IAs. In addition, members elected new working group chairs and board members.

“The IA also provides operational guidance for carriers and vendors.”

“The Security Extension IA approved by the OIF Membership delivers a solution to carriers’ requirements for a complete, unified and simplified approach to securing control plane protocols,” said Jonathan Sadler of Tellabs, newly elected as OIF’s Technical Committee chair. “The IA also provides operational guidance for carriers and vendors.”

The Security Extension for UNI and E-NNI 2.0 IA specifies an optional-to-implement profile of IPsec for securing the control plane. It defines a complete, high-quality, interoperable system to secure all control plane traffic exchanged between two network elements. It also defines additional security services and mechanisms that implementations can include for fine-grained control of security. The Security Extension IA can be viewed at http://www.oiforum.com/public/documents/OIF-SEP-03.0.pdf.

OIF Elections

Newly elected to the OIF board of directors are Vishnu Shukla of Verizon, Lyndon Ong of Ciena, and Torsten Wuth of Nokia Siemens Networks. Shukla will serve as the vice president, Ong as the vice president of marketing and Wuth as a board member.

The membership re-elected Martha Fratt of AT&T and Ghani Abbas of Ericsson as board members. Fratt will continue her role as the OIF treasurer/secretary.

Jim Jones of Alcatel-Lucent, an existing board member, will serve as the new president of the OIF. Rounding out the board of directors is Jeff Hutchins of Cisco Systems who continues to serve as a board member.

Newly elected working group chairs are Remi Theillaud of Marben Products as Architecture and Signaling Working Group chair and Tom Palkert of Luxtera as Physical and Link Layer Interoperability Working Group chair. Torsten Wuth was re-elected as the Physical Layer User Group chair.

About the OIF

Launched in 1998, the OIF is the first industry group to unite representatives from data and optical networking disciplines, including many of the world's leading carriers, component manufacturers, and system vendors. The OIF promotes the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services through the creation of Implementation Agreements (IAs) for optical, interconnect, network processing, component, and networking systems technologies. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of standards bodies and industry forums with the goal of promoting worldwide compatibility of optical internetworking products. Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.