European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), and their commissioned activity Network Functions Virtualization (NFV)

etsiNFV is structured as committee was set up under the ETSI the European Telecommunications Standards Institute. This committee will work on creating the NFV standard. NFV focuses on virtualizing the Network Element, while SDN focuses on separating the Control Plane from the Data Plane, with a standard protocol (e.g. OpenFlow) between the two planes.

NFV and ONF have many touch points and are in the process of drafting a comprehensive collaboration agreement with several liaisons across various areas of each organization, including both the Migration and Market Education work groups.