Network functions virtualization (NFV) differs from network virtualization by one word. At least that's the first difference. For the longest time, too, I couldn't remember if "functions" was suppose to have an "s" on the end or not. I figured it out, eventually.

So what's it like for the beginner today? What's it like to be thrown a bunch of acronyms like "NFV" on an SDN website full of NVs, MVNOs, SVPs, WANs, and now OPNFVs? What will we acronym next? The word acronym?

For those serious beginners who need NFV Basics, I recommend checking out SDxCentral's What is Network Functions Virtualization and NFV Resources pages. Though in this evolving industry, you might as well immerse yourself into the never-ending waterfall of acronyms and check out this list of SDxCentral's "where to start" NFV stories of 2014.

This year marked the two-year anniversary of NFV. Marc Cohn explains the literal state of the ETSI NFV group and the introduction of OPNFV, the open source effort aimed at creating a platform to help push NFV toward deployment.

For NTT Docomo, NFV's all about cost savings and service reliability, even though vendors swear up and down that's not all it's about. Docomo and AT&T have both shown that cost savings is a big part of the equation, like it or not.

The first NFV "marketplace" of its kind. Ciena shared some ideas about how the network functions would be licensed, a key aspect to the dream of moving network functions onto off-the-shelf servers.

Learn how network functions has given us an opportunity to rethink some principles of the network, including telecom's obsession with five 9s reliability (i.e., 99.999 percent uptime).

Though Bethany Mayer left HP and is now CEO of Ixia, HP's creation of the NFV business unit is still important — and it's still there, run by Saar Gillai. Learn about HP's NFV obsession and why OpenDaylight became a bigger priority this year. By the way, we have a new interview with Bethany, with her Ixia hat on, coming up.

NFV orchestration — the management, placement, care and feeding of virtualized network functions (VNFs) — is a complex topic with multiple meanings for the word "orchestration." You might think OpenStack could handle the job, but this article argues otherwise, especially when it comes to carrier-grade networks.

The game is always changing. Alcatel-Lucent's 7750 Service Router has gone virtual, but instead of producing one virtual router, the company is offering a suite of router applications targeting NFV.