A Survey on Network Functions Virtualization for
Telecom Paradigm
Pitta vineel Anvith
Electronics and Communication Engineering
NIT Tiruchirappalli, India
vineelanvith@gmail.com
Dr. B. Malarkodi
Electronics and Communication Engineering
NIT Tiruchirappalli, India
malark@nitt.edu
Abstract— Network functions virtualization (NFV) technology
is an emerging networking technology in the telecom industry
which provides flexible deployment of network services by
reducing the Operating Expenses and Capital Expenses. NFV is an
innovative step to virtualize network services that usually run on
fixed hardware. With the concept of NFV, services like routing,
load balancing, deep packet inspectors and firewalls are packaged
as virtual network functions (VNFs) on commodity hardware.
NFV helps the service provider to flexibly add that service in the
form of a virtual machine (VMs) without upgrading or buying a
new hardware on the customer end. This allows a faster
deployment of the all the network services with new innovations
and helps in increasing great opportunities in the field of telecom-
networking. This paper provides an information about NFV
technology with its characteristics, enabling technologies, benefits,
use cases and challenges. NFV architecture and its comparison
with Software Defined Networking (SDN) technology is also
presented in this survey paper.
Keywords—Virtual Network Functions, NFV architecture, SDN,
Orchestration, VM instances.
I. INTRODUCTION
The concept of Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) is
originated to speed up the deployment of new network services
in telecommunication domain. NFV’s main objective is to
support their revenue and future growth objectives. If we look at
present-day telecommunication environment, it is
overpopulated with large variety of proprietary hardware
devices. If a new network service has to be launched, it requires
the introduction of another hardware entity due to which space
and power complexities arises leading to much more difficulty.
Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) is a modern method of
designing, deploying, and managing network services by
disassociating the physical network equipment from the services
or the functions that are running on them. NFV replaces the
hardware-centric devices to a software running CPUs that works
on standard servers [1].
978-1-7281-1034-9/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE
Dr. N.Gunavathi
Electronics and Communication Engineering
NIT Tiruchirappalli, India
gunavathi@nitt.edu
Dr. B. Rebekka
Electronics and Communication Engineering
NIT Tiruchirappalli, India
rebekka@nitt.edu
There are many challenges faced by network operators
which includes very short device life-cycle, vendor-specific
interfaces, slow protocol standardization, delay in introducing
new networking features and many more. Networks operators
were subjected to an increase in investment needed to build
hardware and cost of operation and maintenance [1], [2]. Due to
this reason, the network operators observed that because of
network capabilities, its maintenance would be a difficult task in
the long run. Hence to deal with this difficulties and practical
requirements of space and capacity, NFV technology has been a
best seen option. NFV overcome these problems by
implementing network functions in a virtualized manner, i.e. by
moving network functions into a cloud technology with several
industrial-standard Servers [2].
The main objective of NFV is virtualizing the network
functions like proxies, load balancers, firewalls, routers or any
other network function running in a fixed hardware and moving
them onto virtual machines (VMs). These VMs or virtual
network functions can run in servers, and all hardware resources
such as computing, storage and networking devices are
monitored as a common resource pool. They can be migrated, or
instantiated in various locations in the network based on the
functionality. It involves the implementation of functions in
software that can work on industry-standard Servers without the
need for installation of new entity or hardware device [3]. An
example of NFV model is shown below in Fig.1.
Fig.1. NFV Model
302
 II. ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES
In the field of Communication networks, we see a drastic
change in flexibly monitoring the needs and necessities of huge
number of devices and users on the internet. This change is
basically to enable the functioning of novel services and
applications in an agile manner. The enabling technologies for
this massive change include IoT, Network Virtualization, and
Cloud-native.
NFV and SDN technologies are greatly observed as the key
enabling technologies to implement a network over 5G slices for
designing, operating and managing it and the entities present in
it. Network Functions Virtualization allows a large number of
multi-tenant networks to run on a physical network by creating
an abstracted network on top of a physical network. Many
organizations like ETSI NFV, ONF, 3GPP, IEEE, BBF etc. are
striving to standardize the architecture framework based on
several business models and use cases. The Virtualization
technology helps the VNFs to run on or more VMs and the
resources are monitored through a hypervisor layer. This
technology along with the concept of cloud computing, provides
flexible and ease operation and on-demand service deployment
into the network, moving from expensive to low-cost platforms.
III. WHY NFV?
Network Functions Virtualization provides many benefits to
network operators which contributes to remarkable changes in
the telecom-industry. The most significant benefits that NFV
provides are CAPEX and OPEX cost reduction, decrease in
power consumption, reduction in time-to-market for the
deployment of modern network services, etc. [1].
A. Benefits
Below is a list of the NFV benefits:
• NFV optimizes the Network Service provisioning and
provides scalable and elastic automation of services.
• NFV decreases the deployment time of new services in
to the network.
• Through servers and low cost platforms, NFV reduces
the cost and power consumption.
• Network Functions Virtualization helps in significant
reduction of the maturation cycle.
• Increased deployment speed by minimizing the network
providers innovation cycle.
• NFV adopts many open-source solutions.
• Reduction in development cost and time to market with
better integration and testing ability.
• Network Services could be scaled dynamically as per
the requirement with NFV.
• NFV provides high operational efficiency due to its
physical network uniformity.
• It Supports multi-tenancy which is like several tenants
coexist on a single hardware entity.
• Energy consumption is highly reduced by utilizing
power managing features in standard storage servers.
303
IV. NFV USE CASES AND CHALLENGES
A. Use cases
The NFV use cases can be divided into two groups. They are
Service-oriented use cases and Architectural use cases [4].
a. Service-oriented use cases
• Mobile network-nodes: Home Location Register, Radio
Network Controller, Node B, evolved Node B, IP Multi-
media core network Subsystem.
• Tunneling gateway element: IPSec/SSL Virtual Private
Network (VPN) gateways.
• Switching elements: Broadband network gates (BNG),
CG-NAT, Routers.
• Traffic analysis methodology: Deep Packet Inspection,
Quality of Experience measurement.
• Application-level optimization: Content Distribution
Networks, Cache Servers, Load Balancing.
• Service Assurance: Service Level Agreement, service
tracking, Test and Diagnostics.
• Security services: Firewalls, antivirus modules, spam
protection and intrusion detective setups.
b. Architectural use cases
• NFV Infrastructure as a service
• Virtual network function as a service (VNFaaS).
• Virtual network platform as a service (VNPaaS).
• Virtual network function forwarding graph.
B. Challenges
In this section, the challenges faced while implementing
VNF-instances are explained. The performance of VNFs, their
manageability, reliability and stability issues, security and
energy consumption are some of the main issues we have
presented below.
a. Performance: While implementing VNFs performance
attributes like throughput and latency, will be affected.
While deploying VNF-instances, we must look for efficient
and robust algorithms to divide network load across
different clustered VMs, taking the latency and maximum
achievable performance into consideration. The efficiency
of a VNF defines its performance attribute.
b. Manageability: The manageability of VNFs is nothing but
the instances should work on Proper integration with
distinct hardware vendors and with end-to-end network
service orchestration. The life cycle monitoring of Network
instances also comes under the challenge of manageability.
c. Authenticity and Stability: Authenticity is a key essential for
network providers in the telecom domain for providing
different services to the customer. For proper authenticity
and reliability, the consolidation and migration of VNFs
which means movement of VNF-instances from one
 platform to a different hardware platform are to be done V. NFV ARCHITECTURE
smoothly. Also, Network stability should not be disturbed NFV Architecture consists of three separate modules: VNFs,
while orchestrating several VNF-instances running on NFV Infrastructure (NFVI), and Management and
different hypervisors from different hardware vendors. Orchestration (MANO) [13] which is shown in Fig.2.
d. Security: While deploying VNF-instances, operators must
make sure the security aspects of the network must not be
affected. Due to integration complexity, the network entities
from different vendors creates security holes. So we need to
rethink about the security aspects while designing and
configuring NFV systems.

e. Interoperability and Compatibility: The main aspect of

NFV is to promote openness. So the interoperability comes
into picture wherein the network carriers must integrate and
operate all the servers and hypervisors from distinct vendors
in a multi-tenant NFV market place which needs an
interface to facilitate the interoperability among them.
These are some of the challenges faced in NFV paradigm and to
have deep insights about challenges in NFV, detailed
information is provided in [5], [6].

C. NFV projects
There are several open source solutions for Network Fig.2. NFV Architecture framework
functions virtualization. Some of the key projects belonging to
them are: OpenFlow [7], Mininet, OpenDaylight [9], OpenStack a. Virtual Network Functions (VNFs): A VNF is a function
[10], OpenMANO, Open Source MANO (OSM) [11] and Open which is implemented using software that runs upon NFV
Platform for NFV(OPNFV) [12]. Comparison for few of the infrastructure. A VNF runs on one or many Virtual
NFV projects is provided in Table I. Machines and each of them will be managed by a module
known as Element Management System (EMS), which
looks after the creation of VM-instance, configuration,
TABLE I
monitoring, and its security and performance. The EMS
COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT NFV PROJECTS
gives basic information essential for the Operations
Project Foundation Area Main Goal Support System (OSS) and performs management
To build a functionalities for the VNF-instances.
platform to b. NFV Infrastructure (NFVI): This is a virtualization layer
OPNFV Linux NFV move forward which consists of software resources where the VNF-
in NFV instances are executed. The NFVI is carried out as a set of
development. NFV-nodes installed in several NFVI PoPs (point-of-
Open ETSI’s MANO presence) to support different use cases for better locality
MANO Telefonica NFV & framework and latency. The virtualization layer is a vital element in
foundation SDN implementation. this NFVI domain, as it ensures lifecycles for the VNF-
Resource instances, independent of hardware.
identification to
install, monitor, c. Management and Orchestration (MANO): MANO
Openstack Openstack Cloud and run includes the management and orchestration functionality
& NFV networking required to manage the lifecycle of the VNF-instances
services over it. present on the top layer to the NFVI. The NFV-MANO
To expand a communicates with the external module known as
Open Linux SDN & platform for OSS/BSS, which allows it to be integrated into a well-
Daylight NFV SDN & NFV as equipped network-wide management landscape. The NFV
an open source. MANO consists of three functionality blocks: NFV
Orchestrator (NFVO), VNF Managers (VNFM), and
Virtualized Infrastructure Manager (VIM).
• NFV Orchestrator (NFVO): It performs the
orchestration of NFVI resources across multiple

304
 Virtualized Infrastructure Managers, instantiates all
the VNF Managers, and also looks after the lifecycle
management of VNF instances. The NFVO interacts
with the NFV external module (OSS/BSS) for
provisioning, configuration, policy-based and capacity
management aspects. It also carries out the
management of network service deployment-
templates and VNF packages.
• VNF Managers (VNFM): It performs the management
of VNFs. The VNFM interacts with the Element
Management System and the VNF for proper
provisioning and configuration management. The
VNFM manages the lifecycle of VNF-instances by
initializing, updating, scaling and terminating VNF-
instances. Each VNF-instance should be exclusively
associated with a VNF Manager.
• Virtualized Infrastructure Manager (VIM): It
performs orchestration and management of NFV
Infrastructure resources. VIM looks after the control
of NFV Infrastructure resources like computing,
storage, and networking resources. VIM provides
different functionalities to allocate, upgrade and
release NFV Infrastructure resources, and to manage
the association of these resources. It also manages the
VNF Forwarding Graphs, which is a service chaining
methodology carried out for the creation and
maintenance of virtual-ports, virtual-links, and virtual-
networks.
d. Operations Support System (OSS) and Business Support
Systems (BSS): OSS and BSS together form a management
system, which helps the network providers in deployment
and management of various end-to-end telecom services
like ordering, billing, trouble-shooting, etc. OSS looks
after infrastructure planning such as service provisioning,
network inventory, network configuration, and fault
management whereas BSS deals with operations like
ordering, billing, and revenue management aspects.
VI. NFV RELATIONSHIP WITH SDN
NFV and SDN are very closely associated and independent
technologies. As shown in below Fig.3, NFV is complementary
to Software Defined Networking (SDN) on a great scale and
very less dependent on it. All the non-virtual network functions
could be managed by SDN but the service functions could be
virtualized and installed without the SDN technologies.
Fig.3. NFV vs SDN
The primary difference between both of them has to do with
the domain to which they apply. SDN technology is assisted by
the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) whereas NFV
technology is assisted by ETSI [14]. We know that NFV
replaces fixed hardware network elements with standard generic
servers but coming to the case with SDN, it replaces the standard
networking protocols to a centralized controlling modules. NFV
supports SDN by providing the infrastructure over which the
SDN-software can run. NFV also aligns alongside to the SDN
objectives for using switches and servers in the physical
network. Some of the key benefits provided by SDN are [15]:
• Network behavior is dynamic and flexible.
• Better use of physical and virtual resources in the network.
• Programmable control-plane.
The better way to understand the two is that NFV aims at
CAPEX & OPEX reduction, space and power consumption
limiting. Whereas the SDN helps in bringing network
abstractions to have flexible controlling and configuration of
the network. NFV disassociates the network functions from the
proprietary hardware for achieving ease in provisioning and
deployment while SDN disassociates the controlling and
forwarding services by separating control and data planes
which provides a flexible programmability to the network.
VII. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, a survey on Network Function Virtualization is
presented by providing detailed information about its
characteristics, benefits and Enabling technologies. NFV use
cases and its challenges are also discussed. The NFV
architectural framework is illustrated with all the functional
blocks present in it. NFV with its relation to SDN is also
presented in this work. Due to its vital role, the telecom industry
must consider expanding opportunities to start its migration to
NFV domain and get going in reaping its advantages. NFV gives
scope to new business opportunity and helps execute services in
an agile way so as to accelerate the time-to-market in offering
customers with novel NFV services.
REFERENCES
[1] ETSI, “Network Functions Virtualisation, An Introduction, Benefits,
Enablers, Challenges & Call for Action,”ETSI white paper,no. 1, pp. 1–
16, 2012. [Online]. Available: https ://portal.etsi.org/nfv/nfv_wh-
ite_paper.pdf
[2] ETSI, “NFV-Architectural Framework,” Etsi, vol. 1, pp. 1–21, 2013.
[3] ETSI, “Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) – White Paper #3
Network Operator Perspectives on Industry Progress,” ETSI white paper,
no. 1, pp. 1–20, 2015.
[4] ETSI, “GS NFV 001 - V1.1.1 - Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV);
Use Cases,” vol. 1, pp. 1–50, 2013.
[5] R. Mijumbi, J. Serrat, J.-l. Gorricho, N. Bouten, F. D. Turck, and R.
Boutaba, “Network Function Virtualization: State-of-the- art and
Research Challenges Network Function Virtualization: State-of-the-art
and Research Challenges,” vol. 18, no. SEPTEMBER, pp. 236–262, 2015.
[6] B. Han, V. Gopalakrishnan, L. Ji, and S. Lee, “Network function
virtualization: Challenges and opportunities for innovations,” IEEE
Communications Magazine, vol. 53, no. 2, pp. 90–97, 2015.
305
[7] N. McKeown, T. Anderson, H. Balakrishnan, G. Parulkar, L. Peterson, J.
Rexford, S. Shenker, and J. Turner, “OpenFlow: Enabling Innovation in
Campus Networks,” ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review,
vol. 38, no. 2, p. 69, 2008. [Online]. Available:
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1355734.1355746
[8] B. Lantz, B. Heller, and N. McKeown, “A network in a laptop: rapid
prototyping for software-defined networks,” Workshop on Hot Topics in
Networks, pp. 1–6, 2010. [Online]. Available:
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1868466
[9] Z. K. Khattak, M. Awais, and A. Iqbal, “Performance evaluation of
OpenDaylight SDN controller,” Proceedings of the International
Conference on Parallel and Distributed Systems - ICPADS, vol. 2015-
April, pp. 671–676, 2014.
[10] OpenStack Foundation, “OpenStack Open Source Cloud Computing
Software,” 2012. [Online]. Available: https://www.openstack.org
[11] ETSI, “Open Source MANO (OSM),” 2016. [Online]. Available:
https://osm.etsi.org
[12] T. L. Foundation, “Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV),” 2014.
[13] ETSI, “Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV); Architectural
Framework,” ETSI GS NFV 002 v1.2.1, vol. 1, pp. 1–21, 2014.
[14] B. A. A. Nunes, M. Mendonca, X.-n. Nguyen, K. Obraczka, and T.
Turletti, “A Survey of Software-Defined Networking : Past , Present , and
Future of Programmable Networks,” IEEE Communications Surveys and
Tutorials, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 1617–1634, 2014.
[15] I. E. T. F. (IETF), “Software-Defined Networking: A Perspective from
within a Service Provider Environment,” Internet Engineering Task
Force, Tech. Rep., 2014. [Online]. Available:
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc714.

306