Napatech announced that it has joined the Kinetic Edge Alliance (KEA), the edge computing ecosystem hosted by Vapor IO. Vapor IO's Kinetic Edge platform is the first fully-integrated hardware and software system for edge co-location, exchange and networking services.

Napatech will work with other members of the KEA ecosystem to define, integrate, validate and promote multi-vendor, end-to-end solutions that result in the delivery of higher-performance edge applications and services, deployed at higher density on small-footprint edge servers while meeting aggressive Quality of Service (QoS) commitments.

Today's service providers are deploying real-time applications and services at the edge of the network to minimize latency, improve security and mitigate backhaul costs. They must also maximize compute density, performance and QoS within edge data centers that have significant space and power constraints.

Napatech's SmartNICs offload compute-intensive networking and security functions from the Central Processing Units (CPUs) in edge servers, enabling those servers to maximize the compute resources available for running applications and services while accelerating the performance of the networking infrastructure.

High-performance network monitoring and analytics, accelerated by the SmartNICs, ensure that QoS objectives are met. Service providers can host more revenue-generating applications and services within the space and power budgets of their edge data centers, while ensuring they meet the service quality levels committed to their customers.

Working with the rest of the KEA, Napatech will help deliver edge computing solutions that better serve data center operators and application software vendors, enabling enterprise and consumer end-users to achieve benefits that include improved return-on-investment, higher throughput and lower latency.

Aaron Hinkle, principal solutions architect, Vapor IO, said: "We welcome Napatech to the Kinetic Edge Alliance, our industry initiative to bring together technology leaders delivering the next-generation internet infrastructure required by edge applications and 5G. SmartNIC technology is a key enabler for edge computing, especially where space and power are at a premium, and Napatech is a key provider of SmartNIC capabilities that enables high throughput, low latency workloads at the edge. Napatech expands the technology scope of the KEA ecosystem, and we are glad to support their leadership in edge computing."

Charlie Ashton, senior director of business development, Napatech, said: "As we expand our market strategy, it's important to align ourselves with organizations that understand the value of our unique offerings. The KEA business community is working together to construct the next generation of the internet, and our solutions help accelerate network performance within the KEA ecosystem. We look forward to this opportunity to help members and their customers meet their quality-of-service objectives."