The IEEE NFV-SDN conference invites researchers from around the world to share ideas influencing the evolution and operation of NFV and SDN technologies. The following is a non-exhaustive list of topics:

NFV and SDN Architectures, Infrastructure and Elements

    Emerging improvements including Network Slicing and the unikernel paradigm
    Impact of “open X”
    Improvements in design of forwarding elements, e.g., switches/routers, wireless systems
    Optimizing NFV infrastructures including hardware acceleration technologies
    Heterogeneous server platforms and the detailed element-level CPU/GPU/FPGA mapping of NFV functions
    SDN/NFV in recent and novel architecture paradigms such as Edge, Fog etc.

NFV and SDN Operation

    Dynamic license management, autonomics, machine learning, monitoring, resiliency, fault management and self-healing
    Network security and isolation impacts of virtualization technologies
    Advanced tools for automated design, deployment, validation, and management
    Application of machine learning and big data analytics to manage to simplify deployment and operation of SDN/NFV networks

Performance Analysis and Optimization

    Costs of migration of application containers and workloads
    Data/control plane performance, interoperability, and scalability studies
    Resource dimensioning and optimization (e.g. cloud-native design), workload isolation and tradeoffs
    Design guidelines for modularity, scalability, high availability and interoperability (e.g. container and micro services implementations)

Results and Evaluations in Application Scenarios

    Comparative studies on different virtualization technologies
    Usage scenarios such as SD-WAN, IoT, Smart Grid, Smart Cities, etc.
    Improvements in future communication infrastructure enabled by SDN and NFV including fixed and wireless access, public, private and hybrid clouds
    Social and regulatory impacts (e.g. network implications of data location and privacy)