Due to the intrinsically inefficient service provisioning in traditional networks, Network Function Virtualization (NFV) keeps gaining attention from both industry and academia. By replacing the purpose-built, expensive, proprietary network equipment with software network functions consolidated on commodity hardware, NFV envisions a shift towards a more agile and open service provisioning paradigm with much lower capital expenditure (CapEx) and operational expenditure (OpEx). Nonetheless, just like any complex system, NFV platforms commonly consist of abounding software and hardware components and usually incorporate disparate design choices based on distinct motivations or use cases. This broad collection of convoluted alternatives makes it extremely arduous for network operators to make proper choices. Although numerous efforts have been devoted to investigating different aspects of NFV, none of them specifically focused on NFV platforms or attempted to explore the design space. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey on NFV platform design. Our study solely targets existing NFV platform implementations. We begin with an architectural view of the standard reference NFV platform and present our taxonomy of existing NFV platforms based on the principal purpose of design. Then we thoroughly explore the design space and elaborate on the implementation choices each platform opts for. We believe that our study gives a detailed guideline for network operators or service providers to choose or implement the most appropriate NFV platforms based on their respective requirements. Note that this report serves as a complementary document for a published IEEE TNSM paper [1]. We will periodically update this document to include the newly proposed NFV platforms and design choices.

翻译：由于传统网络服务供给存在固有的低效问题，网络功能虚拟化（NFV）持续受到工业界与学术界的广泛关注。NFV通过将专用、昂贵、封闭的网络设备替换为整合在通用硬件上的软件化网络功能，旨在实现一种更敏捷、更开放且能显著降低资本性支出（CapEx）与运营性支出（OpEx）的服务供给范式。然而，与任何复杂系统类似，NFV平台通常包含大量软硬件组件，并常基于不同的设计动机或应用场景采用各异的设计方案。这一庞杂且错综复杂的选择集合使得网络运营商难以做出恰当决策。尽管已有大量研究致力于探讨NFV的各个方面，但尚未有工作专门聚焦于NFV平台本身或尝试系统探索其设计空间。本文对NFV平台设计进行了全面综述。我们的研究仅针对现有NFV平台实现。首先从标准参考NFV平台的架构视角出发，依据设计核心目标对现有平台进行分类。随后深入探索设计空间，详细阐述各平台所采用的具体实现方案。我们相信本研究能为网络运营商或服务提供商根据自身需求选择或实现最合适的NFV平台提供详细指南。需说明的是，本报告作为已发表IEEE TNSM论文[1]的补充文档，我们将定期更新以纳入新提出的NFV平台及设计方案。