Networks Functions Virtualizationm or NFV, is a very hot industry topic at the moment. What you might not know is what it means - telecommunications companies who have traditionally used only proprietary software to run their core services are now embracing free and open source software, and in the process changing the way they build and deploy core telco serives to be more open.

This presentation will review what makes up an NFV stack in OPNFV, covering OpenStack, OpenDaylight, Open vSwitch, DPDK, QEMU, the Linux kernel, and other projects. I will present the work being done in these communities to enable the migration of telco applications to this platform, particularly in the areas of improved network dataplane performance, enabling better management of applications running on the platform, and the ability to run real-time guest workloads with KVM.

I will also look at the organisational transformation in the telecommunications industry, and the adoption of DevOps and agile practices, and the evolving culture of the telecommunications industry, and how the changes that are happening at the request of the telecommunications industry benefit everyone, from the home hardware hacker hobbyist to IT operations in small and large companies.