ETSI NFV Release 5 expands the framework to address radio access network (RAN) use cases by integrating recent standards outcomes and formally analyzing energy efficiency aspects. The release includes new work items on fault and alarm modeling, enhanced container networking, flexible VNF deployment, and reliability evaluation for cloud-native VNFs. These studies aim to leverage operator experience and upstream technology trends to advance NFV and cloudification support for telecom use cases. The Release 5 studies are expected to be completed by summer 2022, while certain Release 4 activities regarding container networking and generic VNF management functions will continue with an extended scope.
Keywords: NFV, RAN virtualization, cloud-native VNFs, container networking, energy efficiency