Executive Summary
Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) offers the potential for both enhancing service delivery and reducing overall costs. By enabling NFV with OpenFlow-enabled Software-Defined Networking (SDN), network operators can realize even greater benefits from this promising new use of cloud technology.
OpenFlow-based SDN can accelerate NFV deployment by offering a scalable, elastic, and on-demand architecture well suited to the dynamic NFV communications requirements for both virtual and physical networking infrastructures.
This solution brief showcases how operators can combine NFV and SDN to achieve the common goals of both technologies. It discusses the new IP connectivity challenges imposed by NFV, and presents use cases that exemplifies how OpenFlow-enabled SDN can meet the need for automated, open, and programmable network connectivity to support NFV.
