Lecture on Network Function Virtualization by Dr. Luciano Paschoal Gaspary, Brazil

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is an emerging paradigm that has

opened a large window of opportunities for resource usage optimization in enterprise,

datacenter, and backbone networks, to mention a few.

NFV enables network managers to replace specialized middlebox hardware (performing functions such as firewalling, intrusion detection, load balancing, content caching, etc.) with equivalent, software-based network functions, running on top of commodity, off-the-shelf hardware. There are several ways in which network managers can potentially benefit from this paradigm.