Edge and Cloud in the 6G Era

Does Cloud Really Save Money?

Among the promises of cloud computing was that it would save organizations money by avoiding lots of upfront capital investment in hardware and software. As adoption has grown, users are finding they also are wasting lots of money. 

A study by 451 Research, for example, finds 36 percent average savings can be obtained--but presently are not--simply by using commitment discounts. 

Infrastructure as a service spending is about 13 percent higher than otherwise would be the case if such discounts were widely taken, 451 Research argues. 

source: Virtana

Some 82 percent of organizations with workloads running in the public cloud have incurred “unnecessary” cloud costs, a study conducted by Arlington Research and commissioned by Virtana also finds. 

Some 72 percent of professionals (or IT organizations) report they are fed up with piecing together data from multiple IT operations tools, the study says. 

Furthermore, 70 percent of professionals say IT’s ability to maximize business value is hindered by silos across teams

Disjointed tools are among the sources of friction. About 62 percent of respondents report having to cobble together multiple tools, systems, and custom scripts to get a global view of cloud costs.

About 72 percent of respondents said they are frustrated with a piecemeal approach to management tools to monitor and manage everything from infrastructure performance to cloud cost and migration readiness. 

Some 68 percent of all respondents stated that their teams operate in silos and 70 percent said that limited collaboration hinders their ability to adapt quickly and improve business outcomes. 

Fully 82 percent of respondents have incurred unnecessary cloud costs. Some 56 percent of respondents say they  lack programmatic cloud cost management capabilities, which can mean either that teams are spending too much time managing cloud costs or that cloud waste is allowed to continue. 

86 percent of respondents said they cannot get a global view of cloud costs within minutes. Some 40 percent cannot get such results  within hours. 

71 percent of respondents said that limited visibility across the hybrid cloud environment hinders their ability to maximize value and creates inefficiencies and wastes time. 

About 66 percent of respondents reported it is hard to understand if they are delivering the service levels the business needs. When there are issues, 65 percent say they are hard-pressed to identify the business impact.

5G or V2V for Self-Driving Vehicles?

U.S. Public Cloud Market Now 43% the Size of the Telecom Industry

The public cloud computing  market is approaching $400 billion in 2021, according to Statista. The U.S.U.S. public cloud computing market will reach about $172 billion in 2021, according to Statista. 

That would make the cloud computing services market about 43 percent of the size of the U.S. telecommunications service provider industry. 

source: GlobalData 

Data Deluge Often Impedes Digital Transformation

Digital transformation is much more than digitizing or relying on data, but the ability to harness data arguably is a requirement for DT. 

In surveying 4,036 data decision-makers, Forrester researchers found 55 percent of respondents struggling to meet their digital transformation goals. Some 15 percent of data strategy decision-makers say they have already realized their DT goals. 

Data decision-makers have already increased their investment in DT over the past three years by 77 percent and plan to increase their investment by a further 57 percent over the next three years, Forrester says. 

Three-quarters of data strategy decision-makers have seen the volume of data their firm generates increase over the past three years. Some 56 percent have also seen an increase in the amount of data they collect. 

source: Dell Technologies

SD-WAN Still is a Small Market

Having followed software-defined wide area networks for more than a decade, it still somewhat amazes me that the market gets the attention it does from the service provider portion of the connectivity industry. For starters, it never has generated all that much revenue for service providers. 

Most of the revenue is earned by appliance and infrastructure suppliers that allow enterprises to create capabilities at the edge of the network. It long has been expected that sales would shift to service provider offerings, but that continues to happen at a shower pace than many would have expected.

 

source: MarketsandMarkets 

Any product representing low single digit billions worth of revenue on a global basis, and even less for service providers, is a small market.

Most Enterprise Private Networks Run on 4G, At Least for the Moment

Of 528 organizations globally that have deployed, or are deploying private 4G or 5G networks, either to test them or for commercial deployment, about 70 percent to 75 percent use 4G (Long Term Evolution) rather than 5G, according to the Global Mobile Suppliers Association. 

source: GSA

Some 24 percent to 29 percent of those trials or deployments use 5G, GSA reports. GSA has partial or some data on a total of 626 instances (including planned tests or deployments). Some 50 infrastructure suppliers and 71 mobile operators are involved in the tests or deployments.

source: GSA

Automotive companies account for over 18.5% of the 108 identified manufacturing companies holding suitable licences or involved in known pilots or deployments.

Though 5G has performance advantages over 4G, it seems clear that 4G private networks are deemed suitable for the purposes enterprises have in mind. 

For example, 5G offers 10 times the speed of 4G. Where 4G tops out at 150 Mbps, 5G can support 1 Gbps to 10 Gbps data throughput. 5G also supports up to two orders of magnitude more devices per radio site, compared to 4G. 

At least in principle, private 5G networks have availability of 99.999 percent to 99.9999 percent. In principle, however, 4G should match the “five nines” standard. 

5G provides an order of magnitude improvement in latency, compared to 4G. Where 5G is capable of one millisecond round-trip latency, 4G is rated at about 10 milliseconds. 

Also, 5G has been engineered for 90 percent less power consumption than 4G, making 10-year battery life feasible for some devices. 

It would appear none of those advantages are mission critical for existing mobile private network users. 

With Edge, Everything is a Trade Off

Just about everything in engineering is a trade off: speed versus cost; distance versus cost; latency versus computational power. Latency versus computational power is among the key trade offs for edge computing. 

The lowest latency occurs when edge devices themselves can do the computing. But those devices also have limits as far as computational power. On-the-premises servers can offer a huge advantage for processing power and the ability to derive results faster, with little latency penalty.

source: Cloud Native Computing Foundation 

When more computational power is required, edge computing facilities located somewhat in a metro area might be required. There is a bit more latency, but also much more potential computational support. 

Massive amounts of computing, but with the highest latency, happen when remote cloud computing facilities are used. 

So engineering cost-effective and affordable solutions requires knowledge of the actual use cases and the drivers of value. Basically, engineers grapple with how to solve a particular problem at the lowest cost and complexity, given the latency requirements.

New Factory Use Cases for 5G?

Each digital mobile generation has produced new use cases and capabilities, as illustrated by Siemens in relation to industrial networks. The range of use cases for industrial networks was originally nil to nonexistent in the analog era.

2G networks added the ability to communicate without wires to sensors or machines and supported remote monitoring and control. 

Video surveillance was among the advances for 3G networks. 4G added robust mobile internet capabilities and untethered devices for in-the-field operations. Also, wireless local access was feasible. 

The suggestion for 5G is that use cases will multiply as a shift to edge computing in place of remote cloud computing is possible and useful for some applications. Support for autonomous machines is one example; on-the-spot analysis of process data will allow rapid local adjustment of machine parameters.  

Private cellular networks that operate as a primary local area network are another expected development. 

source: Siemens 

What remains to be seen is the extent to which connectivity providers will have roles that extend beyond public network access. In other words, what additional value can be provided in the systems integration, edge computing or internet of things areas?