Charging Factors for Enabling SDN/NFV Accounting Management

The SDN/NFV technologies, where SDN detaches the control plane and the data plane and NFV enables the virtualization of various network appliances, will transform the traditional networking paradigms. Both technologies create enormous opportunities for telecommunications operators by transforming their networks into low-cost, elastically scaling cloud environments. SDN/NFV is challenging the traditional accounting management with its high flexibility. It is thus very important for telecom operators to identify new charging factors introduced by SDN/NFV in the new telecom ecosystem. In this paper, we report our research results in identifying these new charging factors of SDN/NFV. Furthermore, we briefly explain how to utilize them to define new charging models to enable SDN/NFV accounting management that would benefit both operators and customers in the 5G era.