ABSTRACT
How does underlying technology change when confronted with changing use patterns or changing user requirements? In most cases, the driver is purely economical. If the investment in a technology is large enough, it is stretched to meet new needs. In this chapter, we examine two new paradigms that helped “stretch” the traditional IP infrastructure in the information age. First amongst these is Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) which, as the name suggests, moved network functions from stand-alone appliances to software running on any server, reducing the time-to-market for products. The second is a more clean slate approach using SDN, wherein separation of control and data plane leads to a highly agile and dynamic environment. These two technologies, along with some benefits, challenges and use cases are described in detail next.
