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.. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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Definition of terms
===================

Different standards developing organizations and communities use different
terminology related to Network Function Virtualization, Cloud Computing, and
Software Defined Networking. This list defines the terminology in the contexts
of this document.


.. glossary::

    API
        Application Programming Interface.

    Cloud Computing
        A model that enables access to a shared pool of configurable computing
        resources, such as networks, servers, storage, applications, and
        services, that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal
        management effort or service provider interaction.

    Edge Computing
        Edge computing pushes applications, data and computing power (services)
        away from centralized points to the logical extremes of a network.

    Instance
        Refers in OpenStack terminology to a running VM, or a VM in a known
        state such as suspended, that can be used like a hardware server.

    NFV
        Network Function Virtualization.

    NFVI
        Network Function Virtualization Infrastructure. Totality of all hardware
        and software components which build up the environment in which VNFs are
        deployed.

    SDN
        Software-Defined Networking. Emerging architecture that decouples the
        network control and forwarding functions, enabling the network control
        to become directly programmable and the underlying infrastructure to be
        abstracted for applications and network services.

    Server
        Computer that provides explicit services to the client software running
        on that system, often managing a variety of computer operations. In
        OpenStack terminology, a server is a VM instance.

    vForwarder
        vForwarder is used as generic and vendor neutral term for a software
        packet forwarder. Concrete examples includes OpenContrail vRouter,
        OpenvSwitch, Cisco VTF.

    VIM
        Virtualized Infrastructure Manager. Functional block that is responsible
        for controlling and managing the NFVI compute, storage and network
        resources, usually within one operator's Infrastructure Domain, e.g.
        NFVI Point of Presence (NFVI-PoP).

    Virtual network
        Virtual network routes information among the network interfaces of VM
        instances and physical network interfaces, providing the necessary
        connectivity.

    VM
        Virtual Machine. Virtualized computation environment that behaves like a
        physical computer/server by modeling the computing architecture of a
        real or hypothetical computer.

    VNF
        Virtualized Network Function. Implementation of an Network Function
        that can be deployed on a Network Function Virtualization
        Infrastructure (NFVI).

    VNFC
       Virtualized Network Function Component. A VNF may be composed of
       multiple components, jointly providing the functionality of the VNF.

    WAN
        Wide Area Network.