Enea, a supplier of network software platforms and services, recently announced a product called NFV Access, which is a lightweight virtualization platform aimed at customer premise equipment (CPE) which is deployed at the edge of the network. Optimized for minimal footprint and high throughput for virtual network functions (VNFs) running in KVM and Docker containers, NFV Access supports both ARM and x86 white boxes. Hence, operators and service providers have the ability to meet a wider range of price and performance points while still using the same platform and management interfaces.

NFV Access is architected specifically to meet the special challenges associated with edge-device virtualization. And it does so without the need for a full OpenStack deployment. Together with VNFs, it runs on just two cores without sacrificing throughput or performance. Support for container virtualization increases VNF density and minimizes total system footprint. Main components include virtualization through KVM and Docker, optimized vSwitch, a full FCAPS management solution, VNF lifecycle management, Service Function Chaining capacity, and an optimized data-plane-enabling 10G line rate from VMs and Containers.