Phew! It was a busy week in the realm of software defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV). Here's a final roundup:

Microsoft launched a technical preview of Azure Stack, software for running a private, on-premises cloud. This opens the possibility of running a hybrid cloud where the public and private halves both run on Azure software.

Walmart began offering its OneOps software as an open source project. OneOps works with multiple public and private cloud platforms including Microsoft Azure, Rackspace, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and CenturyLink Cloud, as well as any OpenStack cloud. It allows cloud developers to manage and monitor the applications they develop.

BT announced BT Connect Intelligence IWAN, a managed service that integrates Cisco's IWAN technology. The services are part of BT's Cloud of Clouds initiative. The new launch uses a hybrid environment and managed software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) technology.

ZTE, VMware, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), and Red Hat completed tests with the China Mobile Research Institute to advance the deployment of cloud-based NFV technologies.

ETSI started a standardization group to consider next-generation networking protocols.

The NTT Communications subsidiary HKNet Company integrated NFV technology into its dedicated Internet access service vIP-Net for enterprise customers. New virtual network functions (VNFs) include firewall, traffic analytics, vRouter, URL categorization, and IDS/IPS.

NEC will license a network operating system for NFV from IP Infusion. In a few months, NEC will start to provide IP Infusion's VirNOS technology as its vRouter service connecting multiple VLANs and its vRouter service connecting LANs among multiple tenants in the Japanese market.

Monitoring and analytics firm SevOne hired a new CFO: Rafe Brown, former CFO of Pegasystems and an alumnus of Salesforce.com.

Security startup Illumio announced Netsuite as a customer.

Nokia launched AirFrame, a portfolio of products based on Open Compute Project (OCP) designs and targeting webscale data centers.

SD-WAN startup Velocloud claimed its 2015 sales were 30 times higher than the previous year's.

Infoblox introduced reporting and analytics capabilities targeting core network services.

Ravello Systems announced Instantly Sharable Environments, a snapshotting capability for entire development and test environments.

The OpenSSL project patched a problem that could cause the software to reuse prime numbers in its encryption algorithms.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) reported sales of $2.4 billion and an operating profit of $687 million, while Microsoft, more vaguely, reported that Azure sales had grown 140 percent year-over-year after accounting for currency fluctuations.

Here’s what else SDxCentral has covered lately: