Injecting open networking and virtualisation into access networks

The last couple of years has seen the well-worn ‘virtual CPE’ (vCPE) concept smartened up and presented as Universal CPE. The stress here is on virtualisation as a way for the network end-point connectivity to be more fluid and flexible and above all ‘open’ in dealing with applications and other connections on user premises - home or business.ADVA and Dell EMC say they’re collaborating to deliver just such an open virtualized uCPE  solution for service provider and enterprise customers.It’s built on ADVA’s Ensemble Connector NFVi platform and the idea is that network operators will be able to use it to invoke or revoke virtual network functions (VNFs) on white box CPE and thus serve a whole range of residential and business needs with different sets of VNFs (hence the ‘universal’ tag). Things like  software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) for business or, in future, in the case of residential, entire media and entertainment environments could be fired up as a set of virtual functions and, just as importantly, swapped out again if the user or user organisation wants to move on to something new.