The ETSI Industry Specification Group (ISG) NFV has published the report ETSI GR NFV-IFA 039 titled " Report on Service Based Architecture (SBA) design ". This document is the first deliverable for the NFV Release 5 feature on “Service based architecture”.

Service based architecture (SBA) is an architectural style that places emphasis on the services provided by individual architectural components. Services are accessible over service interfaces, and are offered by service producers and consumed by service consumers. ETSI GR NFV-IFA 039 provides a feasibility study on the application of SBA design style to the NFV-MANO architectural framework specified in ETSI GS NFV 006. This includes - but is not limited to - studying aspects such as making interfaces independent from reference points, identifying new functionality related to NFV services like service registration or applying generalization for some services.

ETSI GR NFV-IFA 039 provides recommendations on the evolution of the ETSI ISG NFV specifications structure and on normative work to be carried out to apply SBA design patterns to the NFV architectural framework. Solutions and recommendations relevant for coexistence of SBA NFV-MANO with the non-SBA NFV-MANO systems are also proposed. ETSI GR NFV-IFA 039 identifies four possible target scenarios for applying SBA to the NFV-MANO, where two of them assume modifications of some existing services by introducing generalization and merger of services which provide the same type of functionality but operate on different types of NFV-MANO objects. Recommendations for migration of non-SBA NFV-MANO to any of target scenarios are provided. Finally, ETSI GR NFV-IFA 039 discusses possible steps in the future normative work to apply SBA design to NFV-MANO architecture.

ETSI ISG NFV initiated discussions to start normative work regarding SBA within NFV Release 5 scope.