DOI : 10.14738/tnc.64.4825 Publication Date: 17 th July 2018 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/tnc.64.4825 V OLUME 6, N O. 4 ISSN: 2054 -7420 SOCIETY FOR SCIENCE AND EDUCATION UNITED KINGDOM T RANSACTIONS ON N ETWORKS AND C OMMUNICATIONS TNC Exploring Network Softwarization and Virtualization by Applying SDN/NFV to 5G and IoT Bao-Shuh Paul Lin 1,2 , Yi-Bing Lin 2 , Li-Ping Tung 1 , Fuchun Joseph Lin 2 1 Microelectronics & Information Research Center, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan 2 Department of Computer Science, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan bplin@nctu.edu.tw, liny@nctu.edu.tw, lptung@nctu.edu.tw, fjlin@nctu.edu.tw ABSTRACT The development trends of networking and wireless communications technologies have evolved toward Open Networking (ON), Software Defined Networks (SDN), Network Function Virtualization (NFV), and Disaggregation. ON and SDN/NFV are playing the key roles for softwarization and virtualization (S&V) of next generation networks such as 5 th Generation Communications and Networks (5G) and Internet of Things (IoT). This article explores the S&V of 5G & IoT and addresses the challenging issues related to applying SDN/NFV to 5G and IoT. These issues include system performance, end-to-end interoperability, software compatibility, global deployment, integration of SDN and NFV , and shortage of talents. In addition, we describe the research and development status of adapting ON architecture and applying SDN/NFV to 5G and IoT in Taiwan. Finally we report the collaboration between National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) and networking industry in the areas of programmable switches built on top of silicon with Programming Protocol-independent Packet Processor (P4) high-level script language and prototyping an OpenAirIntrface (OAI)-based M-CORD. Keywords: 5 th Generation Communications and Networks (5G), Internet of Things (IoT), Software Defined Networks (SDN), Network Function Virtualization (NFV), Programming Protocol-independent Packet Processor (P4), Central Office Re-architected Data center (CORD), Softwarization & Virtualization (S＆V), OpenAirInterface (OAI) 1 Introduction. There has been a paradigm shift in the networking industry, from a proprietary networking with vendor- dependent software/hardware to vendor-independent open source and white-box switches, as illustrated in Figure 1. The white box is the commodity hardware which is available from network equipment ODM vendors. On the other hand, the open source software executed on the commodity hardware in the control plane can be very complex, which consist of controller (with various OSs, ONOS, ODL, RYU) [17][19], Network Function Virtualization (NFV), and Cloud OS. Not surprisingly, the software engineers involved in the realization of this paradigm shift often encounter various challenges, issues, or difficulties. Besides the control plane of Software Defined Networking (SDN) as depicted in Figure 2(a), the software of data plane is also under rapid development. In particular, the new invention of switch programming language called Programming Protocol-independent Packet Processor (P4) that can be tightly coupled