The IEEE NFV-SDN conference invites researchers from around the world to share ideas influencing the evolution and operation of NFV and SDN technologies. The following is a non-exhaustive list of topics:

NFV and SDN Architectures, Infrastructure and Elements
- Emerging improvements including Network Slicing and the unikernel paradigm
- Impact of “open X”
- Improvements in design of forwarding elements, e.g., switches/routers, wireless systems
- Optimizing NFV infrastructures including hardware acceleration technologies
- Heterogeneous server platforms and the detailed element-level CPU/GPU/FPGA mapping of NFV functions
- SDN/NFV in recent and novel architecture paradigms such as Edge, Fog etc.

NFV and SDN Operation
- Dynamic license management, autonomics, machine learning, monitoring, resiliency, fault management and self-healing
- Network security and isolation impacts of virtualization technologies
- Advanced tools for automated design, deployment, validation, and management
- Application of machine learning and big data analytics to manage to simplify deployment and operation of SDN/NFV networks

Performance Analysis and Optimization
- Costs of migration of application containers and workloads
- Data/control plane performance, interoperability, and scalability studies
- Resource dimensioning and optimization (e.g., cloud-native design), workload isolation and tradeoffs
- Design guidelines for modularity, scalability, high availability and interoperability (e.g., container and micro services implementations)

Results and Evaluations in Application Scenarios
- Comparative studies on different virtualization technologies
- Usage scenarios such as SD-WAN, IoT, Smart Grid, Smart Cities, etc.
- Improvements in future communication infrastructure enabled by SDN and NFV including fixed and wireless access, public, private and hybrid clouds
- Social and regulatory impacts (e.g., network implications of data location and privacy)