Overview of proposed IRTF Network Functions Virtualization Research Group 
(NFVRG)

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is a key emerging area for network 
operators, hardware and software vendors, cloud service providers, and in 
general network practitioners and researchers. This area requires exploring new 
directions and working collaboratively on how to create network services that 
utilize a virtualized infrastructure. Network functions that are traditionally 
implemented in dedicated hardware appliances will need to be decomposed and 
executed in virtual machines running in data centers. One key goal of this new 
area is to reduce capital and operating expenditures for future deployments for 
networks and associated services. Another important goal is for the network 
operators to be able to offer value added cloud services to their customers. 
Finally, new business models will open for the provision of network services.

The technologies enabling the virtualization of network functions are currently 
in an early stage of, and they need researchers to develop new architectures, 
systems, and software, and to explore tradeoffs and possibilities for 
leveraging virtualized infrastructure to provide support for network functions. 
The Network Functions Virtualization Research Group (NFVRG) will bring together 
researchers and grow the community around the world in both academia and 
industry to explore this new research area through workshops, research group 
meetings etc. at premier conferences such as IEEE ICC, IEEE Globecom and 
inviting special issues in well-known journals. Some of the key topics of 
research include virtualization of fixed and mobile network infrastructures, 
new network architectures based on virtualized network functions, 
virtualization of the home and enterprise network environments, co-existence 
with non-virtualized infrastructure and services, and application to growing 
areas of concern such as Internet of Things (IoT) and next generation content 
distribution.

The NFVRG will focus on research problems associated with these topics and on 
bringing a research community together that can jointly address such problems, 
concentrating on problems that relate not just to networking but also to 
computing and storage constraints in such environments. It is also hoped that 
the outcome of the research will benefit standardization efforts that can get 
spawned via IRTF & IETF BoF meetings and/or provide useful input to other 
related standards efforts in ETSI or other standards bodies.

More details can be found at - 
http://trac.tools.ietf.org/group/irtf/trac/wiki/nfvrg

First face-to-face Meeting in Toronto

The first face-to-face meeting of the proposed NFVRG will be held along with 
the IETF meeting in Toronto on July 30th Wednesday from 11:30am to 1:00pm in 
the Canadian (C) Room (immediately after the SFC meeting). Please let us know 
if you have research topics to present during the meeting. Would really 
appreciate active discussions in the mailing list 
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>.

Thanks,
Ramki on behalf of the NFVRG co-chairs
_______________________________________________
i2rs mailing list
[email protected]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/i2rs

Reply via email to