Randy Levensalor says that if the move to NFV is to be successful and achieve its full potential, it cannot be effected via a "lift and shift" from the old system because that would result in virtual functions looking and behaving pretty much as they did before virtualisation existed. Without making changes in the architecture and to the ways in which network functions are being deployed it will not be possible to take advantage of the infrastructure of shared services and micro-services. In the end we could end up with something a lot more complex and even harder to manage than was the case before NFV and that's why it is vital for actors in the industry to take on a cloud native mindset.

He adds that the role of NFV in cloud architecture will help both with security and moving network functions closer to the network edge or to the most economically beneficial points within a CSP's network that be the central datacentre or customer premises.

Filmed at: SDN NFV World Congress 2018, The Hague, Netherlands