Software Networks at the Edge: A Shift of Paradigm

Technology advances and costs reductions in processing, storage and communications will determine, in the next years, a growing amassing of IT and networking resources at the edge of current networks (i.e., not only in the distribution and access segments, but up to the end Users devices). Moreover, the edge is also where we are witnessing "intelligence" migrating, already since a few years. This paper argues that the adoption, in this area, of Software Defined Networks and Network Function Virtualization solutions will create a sort of distributed communication "fabric" offering an enormous processing and storage power, to execute functions and services, and to store data. This, together with the economic drive given by a myriad of new Players (entering the arena) along with the rapid expansion of ICT services, will lead to a shift from a network infrastructure, whose capabilities are statically "designed and provisioned", to an highly flexible edge fabric whose dynamics is an emergent property of the ever changing aggregation and usage of resources.