The document discusses the conception, current state, and future of Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), outlining its motivation, architecture, and anticipated benefits while exploring related concepts like Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and cloud computing. It highlights the significance of NFV in improving service agility, reducing capital and operational expenditures, and meeting increasing user demands through virtualized network functions. Future research challenges and hands-on implementations in virtualized Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) are also addressed, emphasizing collaboration between academia and industry.