SDNFlex 2015 - Workshop on Software-Defined Networking and Network Function Virtualization for Flexible Network Management (SDNFlex 2015)

Network management currently undergoes changes towards more flexible network management. This trend is stimulated by Network Virtualization and Software Defined Networks (SDN) that emerged in recent years. These technologies allow networks to be run in a more flexible and cost efficient manner, e.g., by increasing network resource utilization and by decreasing operational costs. As an emerging topic, Network Function Virtualization (NFV) allows even further flexibility by migrating network functions (e.g., DHCP, PPPoE) from dedicated hardware to virtual machines running on commodity hardware. Virtualized network functions are appealing to network operators since they can be migrated and flexibly adapted to current demands.
The newly achieved flexibility in network management, particularly for NFV, opens a set of currently unresolved key questions concerning i) reliability, ii) service orchestration iii) function placement, and iv) performance. How to operate virtualized network functions in a reliable manner by providing redundancy and load balancing? Can virtualized network functions provide performance figures required for network operations and how can such virtualized services be benchmarked and compared? Where should network functions be placed to optimize the network subject to different design criteria? How can services be orchestrated? How can network monitoring be adapted to such flexible networks? This workshop aims at addressing these and similar questions in virtualized networks.
Topics of interest for submissions include, but are not limited to:
SDN/NFV architectures, applications, and use cases
Network monitoring and QoE
Reliability of virtualized network functions
SDN/NFV-based service orchestration
SDN/NFV-based network deployment and management
Business considerations and economic aspects
SDN/NFV security
Theoretical foundations of SDN/NFV networks
Network Operating Systems and Languages
SDN in Mobile and Wireless Networks
Network Service Chaining