By 2022, more than 50 percent of enterprise data will be created and processed outside the data center or cloud, up from less than 10 percent in 2019, Gartner predicts, which partly accounts for hype around edge computing as well as connectivity provider hopes for a role in edge computing.
The issue is what roles mobile operators will choose to pursue.
Singtel and Optus, for example, have chosen to embed Amazon Web Services capabilities into their Multi-access Edge Compute (MEC) infrastructures using AWS Outposts. It is not immediately clear why Singtel chose to use the AWS Outposts platform, rather than the AWS Wavelengths platform.
Outposts was built to reside on a customer’s premises, while Wavelengths was designed to reside in a telco edge computing facility. Outposts equipment is managed directly by AWS, but that should also be true for Wavelengths deployments.
AWS Outposts provides the full suite of AWS tools and services on the premises in a self-contained rack. AWS Wavelengths puts AWS servers inside a telco facility. Perhaps Singtel simply preferred the footprint, capacity and ease of using Outposts, rather than using Wavelengths.
Outposts supplies a rack of servers managed by AWS but physically on-premises. In Singtel’s case that is its own facilities.
Presumably Singtel provides the power and network connection, but everything else is done for them. If there is a fault, such as a server failure, AWS will supply a replacement that is configured automatically. Outposts runs a subset of AWS services, including EC2 (VMs), EBS (block storage), container services, relational databases and analytics. S3 storage is promised for some time in 2020.
Use of AWS Outposts also requires certain loading dock, connectivity and other physical requirements that Singtel and Optus might have concluded was easier to standardize if provided at telco facilities.
Perhaps ensuring adequate facilities also is a requirement. But Singtel also says it can deploy the MEC with AWS Outposts to the customer’s location, especially for use cases where confidential data must be kept, or preferably is retained, on the customer premises.
The shift to edge computing is part of a historical oscillation between centralized and decentralized approaches, and the virtualized 5G network core essentially requires use of edge computing capabilities. It is not yet clear how much synergy might be developed between a mobile operator’s core 5G network edge computing requirements and retail customer requirements.
But many argue that 5G-based private networks, edge computing, and network slicing represent the best chance for mobile operators to boost revenues. Those use cases “present network infrastructure vendors and telcos with the best chance to capture the next wave of wealth that will be generated by 5G,” said Raj Yavatkar, CTO at Juniper Networks.
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