Understanding NFV in 6 videos

If the adage says a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video should worth a million. In today’s post I offer you a quick way to fully understanding Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), Software Defined Networking (SDN), and some of its related trends through six short videos, ranging from the very basics of virtualization and cloud concepts, to the deepness of today’s architecture proposed for the NFV installations.

What “the heck” are virtualization and cloud about?

A short and self-explanatory video from John Qualls, President and CEO of Bluelock, covering the very basics of data centres transition towards virtualized models.

What is the difference between NFV and SDN?

This great summary from Prayson Pate, Chief Technologist at Overture Networks, highlights the differences and similarities between NFV and SDN, and how are these complemented in the telecoms industry.

Let us talk about the architecture

Now the basics are established we can see the overall architecture. Look at these diagrams from HP and Intel where they show the main components involved.

So, wait a minute, what is that thing they call OpenFlow?

The following video from Jimmy Ray Purser, Technical host for Cisco TechWise and BizWise TV, explains OpenFlow in a quick and straight way.

What about OpenStack?

This piece from Rackspace, featuring Niki Acosta & Scott Sanchez, makes a great summary about OpenStack, its origin, and its situation in the industry.

Now, what are the challenges faced and some real cases for the carriers?

Now that the concepts are clear and defined, we can study a couple of real use cases scenarios in the carriers’ network and its architecture, as well as methods for addressing the challenges faced in the NFV evolution. In the following video Tom Nolle, Chief Architect for CloudNFV, presents Charlie Ashton VP Marketing and US Business Development at 6Wind, and Martin Taylor CTO at Metaswitch Networks, covering some use cases like the Evolved Packet Core (EPC) and the Session Border Controllers (SBC) based on NFV.


Wrapping up, where are the vendors and the operators at with NFV?

The following pitch features Barry Hill, VP Sales & Marketing from Connectem Inc., at the IBM Smart Camp 2013 hosted in Silicon Valley. It covers a summary of the market opportunity for NFV, their specific solution for the operators EPC, and a brief check on the carriers’ status with it.

Although the ETSI ISG group for NFV definition will most likely publish the standards for it in one year from now, it is already a reality, and all the vendors and operators are working on it in some way or another. No matter if you are just starting to explore this trend, or mastering it already, I hope these videos gave you something about it you did not know before.