NFV and SDN

NFV (Network Function Virtualization) and SDN (Sotware-Defined Networking) are two important concepts for today’s and future network. So, why are they used together? To understand this, let’s firtly look at their main benefits.

SDN (Sotware-Defined Networking),

Offer a new architecture by decoupling Control Plane and Data Plane
Add programmability capability to the network
Reduces the cost of Data plane, simplify Forwarding

NFV (Network Function Virtualization),

Offer a new network by decoupling Functionality and Capacity
Provide elasticity to the future networks
Reduce heterogeneity of the networks

Taking all things into account, we can think that, SDN as a “Software in the Network”, and NFV as a Network in the Software.

Both NFV and SDN is developed for the similar roles. Each technology reduces the Operational Costs and provide more effective, scalable, secure and user friendly view to the future networks. Using Virtualization and the Cloud are two important key similar characteristics of these technologies. Both technology use cloud, virtualization and automation to reduce OPEX and CAPEX.

Mainly Network Function Virtualization (NFV) focus on to the network functions. With virtualization, it provide a scalable, easy manageble virtual network equipments.

SDN focus is the general network architecture. If we use SDN and NVF together, we can say that NVF is a subset of SDN (Software-Defined Networking).

The main function of NFV is virtualizing the network nodes.

If we check the OSI layer and SDN, NFV together, we can see the below picture.

SDN works, on Network and Data Link Layer of OSI Referance Model. NFV works at the upper layers of OSI Referance Model, Transport and Apllication Layers.

As a summary of SDN and NFV characteristics, you can check the below, comparison table.