ForCES Applicability to SDN-Enhanced NFV

Networking has seen lately a surge in research and innovation with the re-emergence of network programmability in the form of Software-Defined Networking (SDN), a new approach for network data path configuration. SDN provides an abstraction model of the Forwarding Plane and separates it from the Control Plane using open APIs. In parallel, major telecom operators have embarked on an effort to bring the advantages of virtualization to carrier network infrastructures. Part of this effort was invested in establishing the Network Function Virtualization (NFV) Industry Specification Group (ISG) at the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). The NFV goal is to define how Network Functions (ranging from firewalls and load-balancers to routers and access elements) can be virtualized and run as software on high-volume servers instead of specialized hardware. This paper treats SDN and NFV as complementary concepts that together form a bigger picture in the domain of future carrier networks and discusses the complete lifecycle of such a network. In this context we present how ForCES can be used as the foundation for SDN-enhanced NFV and describe the blueprint for the Proof of Concept (PoC) prototype which has been introduced to the NFV ISG. A key goal of this paper is to concisely position carrier NFV and SDN activities under a unified framework.