to thank heartily is long, making this list is not the hard part. The difficult part is to search the words that convey the sincerity and magnitude of my gratitude and love. I express my deep gratitude to my parents for their moral support, blessings and encouragement throughout my life. I am greatly indebted to my wife and best friend for her constant support in every aspect of life and also responsible for encouraging me to finish this book. She has paid the real cost for this work by sacrificing many of her desires and carrying out our combined social responsibilities alone. I want to acknowledge her contributions and convey my sincere thankfulness. I am heartily thankful to Naina, my lovely daughters and inspiration, blessed by God. She always generates enthusiasm and spark in my work by their warm welcome and blossom smile at home. Downloaded 4/15/2022 9:44:49 AM Nova Southeastern University IP Address: 137.52.76.29 Chapter 1 Introduction to SDN and NFV Himanshu Sahu University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, India Misha Hungyo R&D Nokia, India ABSTRACT Software defined network (SDN) and Network function virtualization (NFV) are the two new networking paradigms changing the way traditional networks work. SDN works on the concept of centralization so that all the decisions related to controlling the networks is done in a centralized place in a centralized manner. To provide a centralized control, SDN decouples the control plane and data from the traditional routing devices to take it in the centralized position. The data plane is still intact with the routing devices, but they now become mere forwarding devices and the decisions are made at the centralized place called the controller. The controller is basically the x86 server that is connected to the forwarding devices and communicates with them for all control decisions such as routing. NFV is based on virtualization of network functions in the form of software running over a high end server. This kind of virtualization helps in easy setup of networks as w