So what will the network architecture of the future look like? While it’s still early, a picture of the future network enabled by SDN & NFV adoption is emerging. One of the most critical challenges is inter-operation of physical and virtual network assets. Carriers see inter-operation as a critical challenge because they’ve made huge investments in physical network resources and, while they shift to virtualized network architectures, they expect to operate hybrid physical-virtual networks for years.

This whitepaper explores some of the near term challenges to delivering on-demand services in hybrid networks. In particular, we’ll dig into the service assurance aspects of these challenges and present Spirent’s recommendations and best practices based on our work with pioneers on the cutting edge of SDN & NFV deployment.