The ETSI Industry Specification Group (ISG) for Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) has started working on its next specification release, known as Release 4. While NFV-based deployments are expanding worldwide and show the benefits of network function virtualization, new technologies are expected to be leveraged and features are being added in support of 5G and novel fixed access network deployments that are emerging in many countries.
Release 4 addresses several new issues in the following technical areas: the evolution of the NFV framework to support the most recent cloud, software, and virtualization techniques; novel management architectural styles and operationalization aspects, leveraging virtualization characteristics to simplify deployments; and increased support for automation. While the ETSI ISG NFV is transitioning into the new release, the group will also continue the maintenance of Release 2 specifications, dealing with implementable protocol and data models, as well as their counterpart testing specifications to the end of 2019 and into 2020.