Network Function Virtualization

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is a paradigm that implements traditional network functions (firewalls, load balancers, gateways, packet inspection) as software running on commodity servers instead of proprietary hardware appliances. Introduced by ETSI (2012), NFV reduces capital and operational expenses by leveraging cloud infrastructure and enabling rapid deployment of network services. Combined with SDN, NFV enables on-demand service creation and network slicing. It is now central to 5G and cloud-native network architecture.