Network functions virtualization (NFV) is an initiative to virtualize network functions previously carried out by proprietary , dedicated hardware.
The concept, which was presented by a group of network service providers at the SDN and OpenFlow World Congress in October 2012, is being developed by the ETSI Industry Specification Group (ISG) for Network Functions Virtualization. If successful, NFV would decrease the amount of proprietary hardware that’s needed to launch and operate network services because network functions previously carried out by routers , firewalls , load balancers and other dedicated hardware would now be hosted on virtual machines (VMs ).
