Terminology

MEF Forum URN

MEF has registered the NID:mef with IANA as described in RFC 7818. This namespace is maintained by MEF Forum for use by the Working Committees in MEF.

This document lists the Namespaces registered by MEF and the corresponding MEF specifications that contain the modules using the Namespace. Additionally, this document outlines the process to request namespaces for work that is developed by MEF.

NameSpace Specific String Root

string = (ALPHA)0*(ALPHANUMERIC/-/_)

i.e., a string that starts with an alphabet (a-z, A-Z) and has 0 or more mix of alphanumeric (a-zA-Z0-9) or hyphen or underscore.

All URNs have the following syntax (phrases enclosed in quotes are REQUIRED):

<URN> ::= "urn":" <NID> ":" <NSS-Root> ": "<NSS-restoftree>"

Note that a NSS includes <NSS-root>:<NSS-restoftree> where the <NSS-restoftree> is the rest of tree that has one or more strings each separated with a colon, ":". Note that the colon, ":", is not allowed in a branch or leaf name.

As example, a URN might be constructed as: urn:mef:foo:bar:baz, where," bar:baz" is the <NSS-restoftree> appended to "foo:" as <NSS-root>.

Addition of a new NSS Root requires that an updated version of this document is approved by a Technical Motion of the relevant MEF Working Committee.

Contact Information

All correspondence related to MEF Namespace should be send to namespace@mef.net.

MEF Assigned URN

Updated: February 2025

Use of MEF Assigned URN

MEF Working Committees develop and publish various works as MEF Standards. A list is available at MEF Standards. These include Information and Data Models as well as Interface Profiles for Management Systems. As example, MEF has published work on YANG Modules for MEF Services. Such work in MEF could use the NSS Prefixes specified in this document.

The NSS chosen by a project have to be unique among all MEF projects. See also Namespace Structure

Other Assigned URN

There are no other assigned URNs (e.g., from namespace belonging to another organization) for use in MEF.

Request for Namespaces

Applications for new NSS, using one of the NSS-Roots (excluding xid-nss) specified in Namespace Specific String Root, must be made via email to namespace@mef.net. 

Namespace Application Review

The Application will be reviewed by a group including Co-Chairs of relevant Working Committees in MEF Forum as well as one or more Subject Matter Experts (SME) from Member Companies. There may be 1 or more SMEs assigned for each <NSS-Root>. The SMEs are to be approved in a Procedural Motion of the relevant Working Committee approved at a MEF Quarterly Meeting.

See also Application Details.

Application Details

Applications for the NSS should be made in the context of an approved MEF project. The request can happen at any time during the life of the project. The application should include the following:

• Approved MEF Project Proposal Contribution
• <NSS-root>, i.e., Namespace String Root from

  Caption Reference
  anchor #NSSroots

• <NSS-restoftree>. See also Namespace Structure for examples
• a brief description of its functionality;
• the name and email address of the person making the application; and
• any supplementary information considered necessary to support the application.

An example use in a YANG module is provided in ExampleuseofNamespace

Approval requirements: New NSS applications can be approved by the review group as specified above.

Application with Request for New Branches

When a Namespace Request Application includes a request for a new branch under a <NSS-Root>, then the application should include the following:

• Approved MEF Project Proposal Contribution
• <NSS-root>, i.e., Namespace String Root from

  Caption Reference
  anchor #NSSroots

• New Branch for <NSS-restoftree>. See also Namespace Structure for examples
• a brief description of the Branch and the possible leaves under this branch; 
• a brief description of its functionality;
• the name and email address of the person making the application; and,
• any supplementary information considered necessary to support the application.

Approval requirements: Applications for new branches can be approved by the review group as specified above, unless specified otherwise under Namespace Structure for the immediately preceding branch or NSS root.

Namespace Lifecycle

As shown in

The NSS is allocated after successful review. The allocation is considered temporary till the document is approved for publication as a MEF Standard. The approval of the NSS is conditional on the approval of the Letter Ballot document (that contains the module requesting the namespace). If the document does not get published, the namespace is available for future use.

Namespace Structure

All URNs have the following syntax (phrases enclosed in quotes are REQUIRED):

<URN> ::= "urn":" <NID> ":" <NSS-Root> ": "<NSS-restoftree>"

The number of levels in the tree after "urn:<NID>" is at least 2.

In this version of the document the focus is on the trees for yang-nss and lso-nss. The trees for other <NSS-Root> are expected to be specified in future versions of this document.

In the current version, a table is used to describe the role of each string in NSS as well as example values for the string. When more description and constraints is needed for each string in the NSS, then the layout of this section might be changed with separate sub-section for each string in the NSS.

yang-nss

Each NSS in yang-nss identifies a specific Yang module in a published MEF Standard.

lso-nss

Each NSS under "urn:mef:lso:spec" identifies a set of specification schema files for use with MEF LSO APIs, for a specific product or service specification, i.e. the schema file defining the schema for that product or service, plus any further referenced files.  The URN identifies the version of the set as a whole, and the specific API function for which the schema can be used.  Note that the same version applies to all API functions for a given product or service.

New branches beyond those specified above under the "lso:" NSS Root and under "lso:spec" must be approved by a technical motion of the relevant MEF Working Committee.  Changes to the structure above must also be approved by a technical motion of the relevant MEF Working Committee.  However, the specific branch and leaf names following the structure above, including new branches at levels 6 and higher, can be approved by the review group as specified under Namespace Application Review.

Each NSS under "urn:mef:lso:security" is related to security.

New branches beyond those specified above under the "lso:" NSS Root and under "lso:security" must be approved by a technical motion of the relevant MEF Working Committee.  Changes to the structure above must also be approved by a technical motion of the relevant MEF Working Committee.  However, the specific branch and leaf names following the structure above, including new branches at levels 5 and higher, can be approved by the review group as specified under Namespace Application Review.

The table below shows the assigned branches under "urn:mef:lso:"

xid-nss

This is available for use as experimental NSS for work that is not published. Note also that namespaces under xid-nss is limited in scope to that work. While IETF has RFC 6963 with a different <NID> for example URNs, MEF is using a method of different <NSS-Root>.

<other>-nss