On combining the software-defined networking with the network functions virtualization

Many firms delivering software to the networking market offer products for the software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV). In advertising, the frequent neighborhood of both acronyms, up to their merging into SDN/NFV, creates the impression that the technologies behind them are closely related, if not the same at all. The ascertainment of the actual interrelation between SDN and NFV is complicated by difficulties with understanding the objects themselves. In publications on the subject, some common statements have entrenched, many of them turning out to be dubious at a captious exploration. The article impugns the assumed in various publications affinity of both technologies. They originated independently developing in diverse directions and at different rates: NFV is actively demanded in provider networks, while SDN has been implemented mainly by some big internet companies, with the interest in the technology not growing last years because of a number of uncertainties. Actually, both acronyms, SDN and NFV, gravitate towards each other, even up to sticking together into SDN / NFV, basically in advertisements of networking software suppliers for purely marketing reasons.