What provisioning approach involves deploying virtual network appliances like switches and firewalls via VMs or containers?

What provisioning approach involves deploying virtual network appliances like switches and firewalls via VMs or containers?

• A. SD-WAN
• B. Network Functions Virtualization
• C. SDN
• D. VPN

Answer: (B)

Virtualizing network services and provisioning them as software on standard infrastructure is Network Functions Virtualization. NFV treats switches, firewalls, and other network functions as virtualized appliances (VNFs) that can run on virtual machines or containers, then be deployed, scaled, and chained on demand through orchestration. This decouples network functions from dedicated hardware, enabling rapid provisioning and flexible lifecycle management. SD-WAN focuses on software-defined control for wide-area networking, not on provisioning virtualized network appliances. SDN centers on separating the control plane from the data plane, again different in focus. VPN is simply a secure tunnel technology, not a provisioning approach for virtual appliances.

Virtualizing network services and provisioning them as software on standard infrastructure is Network Functions Virtualization. NFV treats switches, firewalls, and other network functions as virtualized appliances (VNFs) that can run on virtual machines or containers, then be deployed, scaled, and chained on demand through orchestration. This decouples network functions from dedicated hardware, enabling rapid provisioning and flexible lifecycle management.

SD-WAN focuses on software-defined control for wide-area networking, not on provisioning virtualized network appliances. SDN centers on separating the control plane from the data plane, again different in focus. VPN is simply a secure tunnel technology, not a provisioning approach for virtual appliances.