“Network Virtualization: State of the Art and Research Challenges” has been featured in the IEEE Communications Magazine’s July 2009 issue in its Network and Service Management Series. This one is a quick overview of a lot of things related to network virtualization: its past, present, and possible future. The main objective is to let the huge readership of the magazine (which includes all the members of IEEE ComSoc + others) know about the ongoing saga of network virtualization and next generation Internet.

Please have a look at the abstract below; a copy of the (sort of) final draft can be found in my publications page.

Recently network virtualization has been pushed forward by its proponents as a long-term solution to the gradual ossification problem faced by the existing Internet and proposed to be an integral part of the next-generation networking paradigm. By allowing multiple heterogeneous network architectures to cohabit on a shared physical substrate, network virtualization provides flexibility, promotes diversity, and promises security and increased manageability. However, many technical issues stand in the way of its successful realization. This article investigates the past and the state of the art in network virtualization along with the future challenges that must be addressed to realize a viable network virtualization environment.

Acceptance rate for this issue was 14.3% (four out of 28 submissions).