[Pyxl101]

Interesting. Never heard the term Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) before.

> Network functions virtualization (NFV) is a network architecture concept that uses the technologies of IT virtualization to virtualize entire classes of network node functions into building blocks that may connect, or chain together, to create communication services.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_function_virtualizatio...

Seems to be focused on low layers of a telecom stack, so packet processing rather than traditional application layer distributed systems. From the paper:

> One can think of the relationship between Click and NetBricks to be analogous to the difference between MPI and Map Reduce. Both Click and MPI give developers a totally general framework in which to build their applications, but the developer must take on the task of optimizing the resulting code (unless they can reuse existing modules without change). In contrast, NetBricks and Map Reduce support only a more limited set of abstractions whose actions can be customized through user code.

[grok2]

NFV refers to the trend nowadays of implementing in software, networking functionality that traditionally used to run in custom built hardware boxes -- even things like your wireless router at home. Providers seem to think that it's easier to manage software in their data-centers (and achieve better scale perhaps) than to deploy hardware.