Akraino Edge Stack, LF Edge’s open source edge computing project, continues to mature, gaining six more blueprints in its latest release.

The third version of Akraino includes six new blueprints across 10 families, focusing on use cases for telecommunications, enterprise, and IoT. The group, which operates under the Linux Foundation, describes this as the “impact” stage for the open source software stack.

“Our goal is to unite or unify these edges, whether it’s from an IoT perspective, or telecom, or cloud, or enterprise,” said Arpit Joshipura, GM of edge, IoT, and networking at Linux Foundation. 

“From a telecom perspective, most of these blueprints will be sitting either under the base station or in a central office,” he explained. 

The latest blueprints added to Akraino’s architectural framework include support for video security monitoring at schools, cloud gaming, enterprise applications on a lightweight 5G telecom edge, multi-access edge computing for smart cities, and edge hardware acceleration. 

A public cloud edge interface was supposed to be included in this release but it’s been postponed to the next update. The Akraino project was originally announced in early 2018, saw its first version released in June 2019, and introduced support for connected vehicles, mixed reality, cloud native NFV, network cloud, and SDN-enabled broadband access (SEBA) in the second release earlier this year. 

Two primary models of deployment are gaining momentum, according to Joshipura. Network operators are leasing real estate to allow service providers to run a rack of servers and collaborate at that physical location while other organizations are paying to simply onboard their applications, he said. 

“There’s different relationships that have been set up, but either way you look at it, these blueprints help make it unified,” Joshipura said, adding that more than 40 companies are actively contributing to the project. 

The group plans to add more open edge API guidelines, automated testing, and broader support for communities focused on upstream and downstream features in the fourth release. LF Edge has generally updated Akraino on a recurring six-month cycle, which pins the fourth version to early 2021.

“Akraino has evolved into a fully functional edge stack,” Joshipura said. “With a growing set of blueprints that enable more and more use cases, we are seeing the power of open source impact every aspect of the edge and how the world accesses and consumes information.”