[nmrg] Proposed IRTF Network Functions Virtualization Research Group (NFVRG) - first face-to-face meeting at Toronto

[ramki Krishnan <[e-mail]>]

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 [e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>.

Thanks,
Ramki on behalf of the NFVRG co-chairs