Comment by starving_coder

Legacy networking gear might have faced, back in the days, a chronic lack of tools when confronted with performance and/or stability issues. And most of tools/solutions developed were as a direct result of the push from the industry for concrete solutions that instrument the problem methodically. May be the challenges faced by SDN/NFV can similarly be classified as growing pains and the times may present a tangible solution to address the problems you've discussed.