"The ease of onboarding VNFs and the automation of VNF lifecycle management are vital to achieve the expected benefits of NFV/SDN, such as higher service agility and lower operational economics."
Onboarding a virtual network function (VNF) to an individual operator’s network function virtualisation (NFV) infrastructure and management environment is a time-consuming and expensive integration exercise. This constrains communications service providers (CSPs) from introducing new VNFs, especially from multiple vendors – a key original goal of NFV. A slow convergence on a consensus approach to describing VNFs, as well as new tool chains and integration approaches can help to ease the problem. This report provides: an overview of the challenges facing the industry with respect to VNF onboarding and lifecycle management the top considerations that CSPs and vendors must make to alleviate these challenges recommendations for CSPs and vendors.