Network virtualisation leading to cloud like networks (NaaS) has been subject of active research under FP7 and is now becoming an area of interest from a deployment and standardisation perspective. Network Function Virtualisation is expected to bring multiple benefits from a network operation perspective, also in conjunction with the emergence of Software Defined Networking. The panel will review established and emerging trends of network virtualisation, assess the benefits, enablers, and challenges of network virtualisation and outline the complementarity with SDN especially in the context of transport network deployment & management. From that perspective, the panel is expected to address critical research challenges and debate the main elements of an industrial research roadmap in the field.

• What is the current status of deployment of network virtualisation? What are the benefits already achieved and expected?
• What are the key enablers (technology, market, regulation, standards..) towards fully virtualised networks?
• What are the main remaining challenges and what the industrial innovation roadmap should be considered?
• For which network domains and layers, network functions virtualisation makes a realistic proposition?
• What is the complementarity between network virtualisation and SDN based operations?
• How can SDN with virtualised networks lead to optimised network operations?
• Does transport SDN makes sense? How from traditionally controlled/managed transport networks evolve to SDN service orchestration architectures?
• How will network operators and equipment vendors adapt to hardware commoditisation supported by SDN based architectures?
• Could large scale European testbeds be of relevance to accelerate development and deployment?

Dr Diego R. Lopez is in charge of the Technology Exploration activities within the GCTO Unit of Telefónica I+D. He joined Telefónica in 2011 after several years in the academic sector. During this period he was appointed as member of the High Level Expert Group on Scientific Data Infrastructures by the European Commission, and as member of Internet2 MACE. Diego is currently focused on identifying and evaluating new opportunities in technologies applicable to network infrastructures, and the coordination of national and international collaboration activities. He is one of the authors of the NFV whitepaper and co-chair of the MANO WG within the NFV ETSI ISG. His current interests are related to network infrastructural services, new network architectures, and network programmability and virtualization.

Dr. Akihiro Nakao received B.S.(1991) in Physics, M.E.(1994) in Information Engineering from the University of Tokyo. He was at IBM Yamato Laboratory/at Tokyo Research Laboratory at IBM Texas Austin from 1994 till 2005. He received M.S.(2001) and Ph.D.(2005) in Computer Science from Princeton University. He has been teaching as an Associate Professor in Applied Computer Science, at Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies, Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, the University of Tokyo since 2005. (He has also been an expert visiting scholar/a project leader at National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) since 2007.)

Dr. Yaron Wolfsthal heads the System Technologies area at the IBM Haifa Research Laboratory, Israel, where he is responsible for developing technologies in support of IBM's advanced ICT platforms, with a focus on infrastructure technologies for cloud computing. His team's activities include applied and long-term research on software-define networking, network virtualization and advanced methods for developing network connectivity services. He has 20 years of experience in various R&D and management roles. He holds B.Sc., M.S. and PhD degrees in computer science, all from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. Dr. Wolfsthal is the Vice Chair of NESSI - the Networked European Software and Services Initiative.

Dr Krishan Sabnani is Vice President of Networking Research at Bell Labs. He manages all networking research in Bell Labs, comprising ten departments in seven countries: USA, France, Germany, Ireland, India, Belgium, and South Korea. Krishan received the 2005 IEEE Eric E. Sumner Award and the 2005 IEEE W. Wallace McDowell Award. He is a Bell Labs Fellow and a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). After receiving a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Columbia University, New York, he joined Bell Labs in 1981.

Dr Andreas Gladisch is in charge of the innovation field Convergent Networks and Infrastructure. He holds a Dipl. Ing. degree in Theoretical Electrotechnics from the Technical University of Ilmenau, and a Ph. D. in Optical Communication from Humboldt University Berlin.
He joined the Research Institute of Deutsche Telekom in 1991 working on Management of WDM networks. From 1999 until 2009 he held several positions at T-Systems and was involved in the development of the national and international strategy of Telekom's transport networks. In 2006 he became head of the unit Next Generation Broadband Networks. Since 2009 he manages the project field "Broadband Network Architecture and Economics" and the department "Infrastructure Development" of Telekom Innovation Laboratories. Dr. Gladisch is member of ITG and IEEE and has authored or co-authored more than 120 national and international technical conference or journal papers. He holds several patents

Dr. Jörg-Peter Elbers is Vice President Advanced Technology at ADVA Optical Networking in Munich, Germany, and is responsible for technology strategy, new product concepts, standardization, and research. Current advanced technology activities include software-defined networking, beyond 100G transmission and next-generation optical access. Prior to joining ADVA in 2007, Jörg-Peter was Director of Technology in the Optical Product Unit of Marconi (now Ericsson). From 1999 to 2001, he worked at Siemens AG, last as Director of Network Architecture in Siemens Optical Networks. He holds a Dr.-Ing. and Dipl.-Ing. degree in electrical engineering from the Technical University of Dortmund, Germany.