Software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) have been at the forefront of the R&D networking world since the last decade [1]. However, these new paradigms may not be well understood by many IT professionals.

The book is easy to read but requires a solid background in networking technologies, and is focused on the AT&T network.

Chapter 1 serves as an introduction and provides the motivation for making a network, such as the AT&T one, “software-ized.” The second chapter describes how to transform an all-IP network into a network cloud. The term “network cloud” is used by AT&T to describe a full SDN/NFV network using mainly software running on virtualized machines hosted in the cloud.

Chapters 3 and 4 contain a generic presentation of NFV with a focus on the network function virtualization infrastructure (NFVI), interesting for people unfamiliar with this technology. Chapter 5 explains how to achieve high availability in a network cloud by using fault-tolerant virtual machine (VM) designs and virtual network functions (VNF) failure detection and recovery.

Chapter 6 introduces SDN [2], both overall and in the context of AT&T, describing the SDN controllers used by AT&T as well as the AT&T network domain-specific language (ANDSL).

The open network automation platform (ONAP) is described in chapter 7. Originating from AT&T’s ECOMP and the Linux Foundation’s Open-O, ONAP is an open-source VNF automation platform containing eight subsystems such as the service design and creation module, the master service orchestrator, and the data collection analytics and events (DCAE) module. Data collection and analytics and their use in closed-loop automation are detailed in chapter 8.

Being a topic orthogonal to all IT systems, security in the context of the network cloud is presented in chapter 9 with a focus on the ASTRA security platform. Chapter 10, while interesting in its own right, is a bit off topic, dealing mainly with the performance of various virtualized network interfaces.

Chapters 11 to 13 address all network components from access to core and are definitely worth spending time on because they describe in detail how the network of the future is built from open vOLT to 5G technologies to open reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM).

Chapters 14 to 16 focus on service platforms and network operations and measurements, thus explaining to the reader how to efficiently deploy and monitor virtual network functions.

Finally, the last two chapters serve as an overall conclusion and present future directions such as hyper-automation, that is, the massive use of machine learning for network control and optimization.

Anyone reading this book in its entirety will have a complete and accurate picture of the state of the art in network technologies. Furthermore, these technologies are put into context by describing their deployment inside the AT&T network. Indeed, in February 2018, AT&T announced expanding its software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) to 150 countries, illustrating the scalability of this network of the future.

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