From the course: 5G and Cloud Computing: Telco Cloud Fundamentals

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Network function virtualization (NFV): Moving from hardware to software

Network function virtualization (NFV): Moving from hardware to software

From the course: 5G and Cloud Computing: Telco Cloud Fundamentals

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Network function virtualization (NFV): Moving from hardware to software

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Let's start with a simple example where what if you could take all your heavy-duty hardware that runs a telecom network and virtualize it. And that's what network function virtualization is. In context of 5G, NFV breaks away from the traditional model of using dedicated hardware for each network function. Instead, it lets us run these functions on the general purpose servers, and all this is happening virtually. This brings us certain flexibility, faster deployment, and big boost in scalability. So instead of relying on physical boxes for every services, we build and manage them in a software. So we have different key terms that are being used here. One of that is NFVI, which is the NFV infrastructure. Think of it as the virtual playground where all network functions run. We start with the physical hardware, which is compute, storage, and network nodes. Then using something called a hypervisor, we turn these into virtual machines. All of this makes up the NFVI and is managed by a…

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