A Building Block to Model an SDN/NFV Network

Application of Software Defined Network (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) paradigms to telecommunications networks are determining an evolution towards a so-called Software Defined Infrastructure (SDI), where network and service functions are developed and controlled as software applications. Management and orchestration of resources are key elements in this softwarization process. To support it, a theoretical activity of modeling network nodes and networks of nodes is needed in both design and operational phases. To this purpose, this paper defines an analytical model of an SDN/NFV node that can work as a building block for a more complex model of a whole softwarized network.