To the extent that hyperscale data centers now drive capacity requirements for the global wide area networks, it also stands to reason that new hyperscale data centers in “tier two” locations will drive capacity requirements.
Thursday, January 30, 2020
Wednesday, January 29, 2020
Who Wins at the Edge?
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| Dean Bubley |
Edge computing almost certainly is going to create opportunities, but for whom? Alibaba and China Tower are working to create edge computing services, said Yang Yang, ShanghaiTech University School of Information Science and Technology co-director and professor.
But note something about that partnership: it is the app provider and the tower company that are working to create edge computing, not the connectivity provider.
Amazon Web Services has partnered with several global telcos to create Wavelengths, an edge computing service using telco real estate. Initial partners include Verizon, Vodafone, KDDI and SKTelecom. But note there that that the edge computing service is supplied by AWS. The telco role is connectivity and rack space.
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| Yang Yang |
AT&T seems, at least initially, to favor a prioritized routing approach for enterprise data centers, essentially staying out of the colocation space. Another version of the AT&T service has Microsoft Azure supplying the edge computing, colocated inside enterprise data centers.
The point is that multi-service edge computing might wind up being a smaller business for connectivity providers than had seemed possible a few years ago.
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| John Ghirardelli |
How much change will 5G bring to the rest of the internet ecosystem? “Less than you think” or “almost everything” are the range of expectations for 5G expressed at a PTC’20 panel on 5G implications. Much hinges on which part of the ecosystem one examines.
Mobile network physical infrastructure will change, but the business model could change even more. 5G will have the greatest and early impact on the telecom industry itself, argued Dean Bubley, Disruptive Analysis owner. New providers will emerge, including wholesale roles, private 5G operators and enterprise 5G networks as well, he says.
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| Ramy Katrib |
The physical layer changes might be least revolutionary. “5G is just another evolution of the ecosystem, using a wider range of frequencies, more fiber, bringing new entrants into the space and expanding the ecosystem,” said John Ghirardelli, American Tower Corporation director.
On the other hand, there are many new technologies, including MIMO, network slicing and edge computing, said Yang,
Dense small cell networks with fiber extensively and deeply deployed are some other changes 5G will bring.
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| Gary Kim |
Applications and business models might be where the greatest 5G changes happen. All prior mobile generations were built around human end users on phones. The 5G network is the first where machines, sensors and servers will outnumber phones, and where computers--not people--are the most numerous devices.
That alone changes the business model from a consumer-driven mobile phone business to an enterprise-focused sensor connection business. In short, enterprise internet of things might drive new revenue, not consumer smartphone use.
Also, 5G will differ from 2G, 3G or 4G, which served people using intelligent devices, said Yang. In comparison, most 5G device will be “stupid,” requiring computing support at various places in the network, autonomously on devices, someplace in the metro area or remotely.
Which parts of the computing ecosystem benefit is the big question. It might be easy to suggest that application providers, device suppliers, edge computing as a service suppliers and others might benefit more than connectivity providers.
But 5G could revolutionize scripted television production, because “a big pain point is connecting video production to the internet,” said Ramy Katrib, DigitalFilm Tree founder and CEO. “We compete with FedEx or physical media,” he said.
And one key requirement is ensuring data recoverability even if connections are interrupted. “We assume there will be service interruptions,” Katrib said. So a key “killer app” is the assurance that all data is recoverable, even in the face of file transfer interruptions.
Moving video files straight to editing suites will be revolutionary, Katrib argued.
And patience might be required. “5G will be really popular by the time 6G arrives,” Yang quipped. “We are early days in terms of edge computing,” said Ghirardelli.
Sunday, January 26, 2020
Verizon and AT&T Initially Take Different Approaches to Edge Computing
With the caveat that each firm might undertake other edge computing initiatives, Verizon and AT&T seem to be taking different approaches to the edge computing business. Verizon seems to have chosen to operate as a supplier of edge rack space and facilities. Verizon also is partnering with Amazon Web Services, which supplies the actual edge computing as a service.
AT&T seemed initially to prefer a version of enterprise edge computing, where AT&T routes traffic differentially based on enterprise priorities, but does not seem to require additional computing functions aside from that provided by the enterprise itself.
But a Microsoft Azure compatible version also seems to be available, where enterprises Microsoft Azure services in edge locations closer to customers and devices. In that scenario, it appears Azure computing services are available locally.
AT&T seemed initially to prefer a version of enterprise edge computing, where AT&T routes traffic differentially based on enterprise priorities, but does not seem to require additional computing functions aside from that provided by the enterprise itself.
But a Microsoft Azure compatible version also seems to be available, where enterprises Microsoft Azure services in edge locations closer to customers and devices. In that scenario, it appears Azure computing services are available locally.
AT&T colocates routing gear at the enterprise data center and then routes traffic differentially. High-priority, mission-critical data using either Wi-Fi or mobile networks is processed locally and immediately sent back to the appropriate end-point within the customer’s private wireless network environment, rather than being processed remotely.
It is possible, perhaps even likely that other edge initiatives also will be developed be each firm.
Thursday, January 23, 2020
Enterprise Workloads Now 79% Cloud
Public cloud spend is quickly becoming a significant new line item in information technology budgets, especially among larger companies, a survey sponsored by RightScale suggests.
Among all respondents, 23 percent spend at least $2.4 million annually ($200,000 per month) on public cloud while 33 percent are spending at least $1.2 million per year ($100,000 per month).
Among enterprises the spend is even higher, with 38 percent exceeding $2.4 million per year and half (50 percent) above $1.2 million per year.
Small and medium businesses generally have fewer workloads overall and, as a result, smaller cloud bills (just over half spend under $120,000 per year). However, 11 percent of SMBs still exceed $1.2 million in annual spend, RightScale says.
Enterprise respondents run 79 percent of workloads in cloud, with 38 percent of workloads in public cloud and 41 percent in private cloud. Workloads running in private cloud may include workloads running in existing virtualized environments or bare-metal environments that have been “cloudified,” says RightScale.
Non-cloud computing comprises about 21 percent of respondent workloads.
Small and mid-sized businesses report running 43 percent of workloads using public cloud and also run 35 percent of workloads on private cloud. Some 22 percent of workloads remains on non-cloud platforms.
Public Cloud Spending Will Grow 17% in 2020
These days, cloud computing is simply part of computing. According to the Rightscale 2019 State of the Cloud report, 94 percent of enterprise information technology respondents use cloud computing.
Some 84 percent of enterprise respondents have a multi-cloud strategy. Hybrid cloud is used by 58 percent of enterprises.
Public cloud adoption is 91 percent and private cloud adoption is 72 percent. About 69 percent of respondents use at least one public and one private cloud.
So it should not come as a surprise that the worldwide public cloud services market is forecast to grow 17 percent in 2020 to total $266.4 billion, up from $227.8 billion in 2019, according to Gartner.
Software as a service (SaaS) will remain the largest market segment, which is forecast to grow to $116 billion next year due to the scalability of subscription-based software.
The second-largest market segment is cloud system infrastructure services, or infrastructure as a service (IaaS), which will reach $50 billion in 2020. IaaS is forecast to grow 24 percent year over year, which is the highest growth rate across all market segments.
The notion of “cloud” has been a standard part of computing network diagrams for many decades, denoting computing resources “somewhere else” that are not under the ownership or control of any single enterprise.
Just as specific symbols are used on network diagrams to show the elements of an enterprise network, so the “cloud” symbol simply represents other existing wide area network assets not owned or controlled by an specific end user organization.
Worldwide Public Cloud Service Revenue Forecast (Billions of U.S. Dollars)
Monday, January 20, 2020
How Big a Role for Telcos in Edge Computing?
The new Amazon Web Services Outposts “delivers fully managed AWS infrastructure, native AWS services, APIs, and tools to virtually any customer on premises facility,” AWS says. That makes it an important development in edge computing, edge computing as a service and illustrates the decisions connectivity service providers will have in building a relevant role in edge computing.
Mobile edge computing and multi-service edge computing (fixed networks) rightly are viewed as potential revenue sources for connectivity providers. But it remains quite unclear what specific connectivity provider roles are possible.
That especially is true now that some cloud giants such as Amazon Web Services are rolling out their own edge computing services that create edge computing nodes inside enterprise data centers or telco facilities.
Rack space might be a nice add-on business, but it is not the revenue stream edge computing on demand should represent.
“Customers have been asking for an AWS option on-premises to run applications with low latency and local data-processing requirements,” AWS says, and AWS Outposts is a service that brings the same infrastructure, APIs, and tools that customers use in AWS to virtually any customer on-premises facility.
“One of the most common scenarios is applications that need single-digit millisecond latency to end-users or onsite equipment,” says AWS.
The point is that it remains unclear how many roles connectivity providers will wind up occupying as edge computing becomes more established. Roles might be more limited, in practice, than many had hoped.
Thursday, January 16, 2020
Where is the Edge?
Edge computing is one of the more-flexible concepts in the computing universe. It can refer to computing on a device, on the premises or on the network edge. The “telecom edge,” in some cases, refers to small data centers located as much as 30 miles from a device or location requiring edge computing support.
Another way of describing the venues is that device computing is consumer edge, with computing happening on the end user device. The enterprise edge might happen at one or more servers on a premises. A telecom edge location would then be outside any single enterprise location, but within a single metro area.
Most Enterprise Data Will be Generated at the Edge
While today only 10 percent of all data is handled at the edge, analysts expect in three years between 50 percent and 75 percent of all data to be produced and processed at the edge,” said Paul Morgan, global sales for manufacturing, automotive and IoT, HP Enterprise. “Gartner puts the figure at 75 percent.”
Wednesday, January 15, 2020
Edge Computing for Global Enterprises
América Móvil, KT, Rogers, Telstra, Verizon and Vodafone have formed the 5G Future Forum to develop interoperable 5G specifications--including mobile edge computing--across key geographic regions, including the Americas, Asia-Pacific and Europe.
The whole point seems to be creation of a seamless global capability for large enterprises with global operations who seek internet of things and edge computing as a service.
The 5G Future Forum says it will focus on the creation of uniform interoperability specifications to improve speed to market for developers and multinational enterprises working on 5G-enabled solutions including machine learning at the edge, autonomous industrial equipment, smart cars and cities, Internet of Things (IoT), augmented and virtual reality,
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
Equinix Buying Packet to Provide Edge Computing
Equinix is acquiring Packet, a bare metal automation platform, a move many will interpret as preparation for more edge computing.
“Bare metal” is a single tenant server, not a shared “cloud” approach to using server resources. This means only a single customer has full use of server resources,
Packet's proprietary technology automates physical servers and networks without the use of virtualization or multitenancy, allowing Equinix to add new on-demand deployment alternatives at the edge, using owned physical resources or Equinix “as-a-service” computing.
Friday, January 10, 2020
Edge Computing as a Business, Not Technical, Issue
The ultimate importance of edge computing to a telco has several dimensions. First, edge computing supports a telco's own operations, in a virtualized environment that 5G demands. A few revenue-generating roles also are possible, ranging from colocation and rack space to actual edge computing as a service operations.
Edge computing as a service supplied by a connectivity provider is based at least in part on the ability to repurpose central office assets, ranging from real estate, power and cooling to rack space and partitioned server access.
Central Office Re-imagined as a Datacenter is one effort to create that new platform, at least in part because 5G is expected to require such support. So as long as computer rooms must be built to maintain 5G operations, it is logical to consider what else might be done with those assets.
Network slicing, the ability to easily (or relatively easy) create virtual private networks, is one reason former central offices are becoming data centers. Virtualization is another reason. Also in an edge computing environment run by a telco, there has to be some way to separate an enterprise VPN data stream from all other traffic.
That is where the local breakout function becomes key. Local breakout allows enterprises to separate their own private traffic from the mobile service providers’ other traffic, at a gateway.
In principle, that might allow an enterprise VPN to terminate its local traffic at a gateway and then forward that traffic to its own or some other third party data center without necessarily using the telco’s own edge computing facilities.
There are lots of business issues here, of course. On one hand, a telco edge computing provider might not want to make it easy for enterprises to choose other edge services suppliers. On the other hand, neutral host operation might be necessary. And, much as multi-cloud often is preferred, so too might customers want the option to compute at more than a single edge site, using one or more providers.
How Big an Edge Computing Issue is Three-Phase Power?
Perhaps it is not the most-common challenge one will hear about edge computing, but the availability of three-phase power is an issue for edge computing, albeit an issue firms such as Schneider Electric are solving.
Schneider Electric’s Edge Module includes single- or three-phase power, N+1 standard cooling, and package cooling units mounted on the outside of the module to eliminate the need for external condensers or piping, the company notes.
The Edge Module is specifically suited to the cell tower edge with its single-phase design equipped for 208 volts of power and supporting six racks.
The issue is that server farms are expected to require access to high-voltage, three-phase electricity, and cannot use 120 volt AC, which is single phase. Three-phase is used by electrical transmission facilities and supports heavy power loads for big motors, for example.
The issue is that cell towers have not generally had access to three-phase power, as it was not needed. The typical base station requiring less than 10kW will only be using single-phase power, experts tend to agree. Three-phase power would be used at power levels of 20kVA of alternating current and above, which will tend to be the case for server farms, experts also tend to agree.
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