This chapter explores how NFV and SDN can be maximally applied to access networks, given their topology constraints. 11.3 EXTENDING NFV AND SDN TO NETWORK ACCESS To extend the network cloud for access application, compute and storage resources need to be dis- persed to remote locations. The new architecture needs to support cost-effective smaller compute and storage instantiations at these locations. In order to overcome the specialized hardware chal- lenge, the network cloud architecture is extended to provide open specifications for specialized hardware with defined generic interfaces that allow access software to be implemented indepen- dently from the specifics of the access hardware. In order to overcome these challenges and imple- ment these approaches, the network cloud architecture decomposes the integrated functions and features of a traditional access network element, allowing those functions to be executed at different locations and on different hardware platforms. Large data center environments are optimized for supporting large numbers of compute and storage nodes, including thousands of processors interconnected with spine and leaf switches. Open Stack is well suited to provide orchestration at the scale required environments. However, minimal configurations of Open Stack still require multiple servers. The general purpose processing required for a distributed access node may include only a single processor integrated as part of an SOC, and that single processor at the access node will be performing media access control (MAC) and quality of service (QoS) functions that must be coordinated with SDN in the larger network. That single processor will also be generating traffic performance and usage statistics that must be integrated into the large-scale ONAP Data Collection, Analytics and Events (DCAE) platform. These require- ments mean that the access network requires the network cloud architecture to run in an integrated fashion across small-scale distributed access nodes and large-scale centralized 