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Telecom Compute Infrastructure at the Network Edge

Looking down at a night-time cityscape with an overlay of a network edge infrastructure connecting various telecom services.

From private 5G to online gaming, telecommunications companies see a growing demand for innovative services in a wide range of markets, driving new business and revenue opportunities. But these services require cutting-edge functionality such as real-time data processing, low latency, and energy efficiency, which can be difficult to achieve.

And deploying these systems in hundreds or even thousands of geographically distributed locations requires the ability to manage and operate deployments at mass scale.

With a localized, performant compute infrastructure—essentially a mini data center—telcos can overcome these challenges and gain the power and flexibility to support advanced workloads where they’re needed: at the far network edge.

To successfully build an edge computing solution, businesses need infrastructure. Typically deployed outdoors, housing, power, computing, storage, and connectivity must be built for harsh environments.

And of course it needs software to process, store, manage, and protect data. NodeWeaver, a software-defined edge operating platform provider, aims to solve these challenges and minimize total lifecycle cost by addressing the main drivers of cost and complexity—acquisition, deployment, and management.

Finally, telecoms, enterprise organizations, and multi-tenant operators are not in the business of building out this type of infrastructure on their own. What’s needed is a customizable all-in-one solution that serves a diverse set of needs and doesn’t require a legion of engineers to deploy.

“This use case represents an important and tangible example of an #edge deployment, which many within the #telco industry have talked about but few have actually deployed.” – Mitch Kitay, @nodeweaver via @insightdottech

Partners Pilot a 5G Edge Computing Platform

Three leading technology companies—alongside Intel—collaborated on Street Edge, a street-side telecommunications system, demonstrating how a fully integrated, multiuse platform can be built and deployed. Together, Colt Technology Services, a global digital infrastructure provider; CIN, a communications Infrastructure company; and NodeWeaver launched a proof-of-concept in the heart of London.

“This use case represents an important and tangible example of an edge deployment, which many within the telco industry have talked about but few have actually deployed,” says Mitch Kitay, Business Development Executive at NodeWeaver.

Each company brings their individual technologies, products, and expertise to the telecom system.

The Colt Network global digital infrastructure platform enables a number of services such as internet access, point-to-point Ethernet, dedicated cloud access (DCA), and time synchronization, powered by Colt’s on-demand network-as-a-service (NaaS) platform. The connection to the Colt Network allows Street Edge to support far-edge compute alongside public and private 5G networks, Wi-Fi, and IoT networks.

For networking services, Street Edge can be outfitted with a fiber bundle that uses a fiber distribution patch panel for connectivity flexibility to Colt services or to dark fiber for building private fiber networks. In the pilot system, Colt configured a 100Gbps connection to the Colt Network, a 400Gbps global backbone network that connects more than 230 cities; 1,100 data centers; and 32,000 buildings worldwide.

The CIN street-side telecommunications enclosure, Street Arc, is purpose-built to support mobile telecom networks, Wi-Fi networks, Edge and IoT Networks, and edge computing (Figure 1). The configuration includes support for up to nine 4G/5G radios and multiple edge servers, as well as cooling, fiber, and power.

Installed in the cabinet is an Advantech edge network appliance—powered by 4th Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors—with eight 10GbE ports for connectivity to a co-located Cisco Systems network switch that serves as an interconnect for the networked systems within Street Edge.

NodeWeaver’s Edge Operating System, running on the Advantech appliance, orchestrates all Street Edge applications, delivering an edge-native experience with resilient, agile, and scalable compute clusters capable of running multiple virtual machines and container-based workloads.

With edge compute for tenant applications, edge wireless network services, and fiber-optic network access to the internet or to Colt’s worldwide network, Street Edge demonstrates an innovative way to deploy services in urban areas.

CIN Street Side enclosure outside the Colt’s London headquarters.
Figure 1. CIN Street Side enclosure deployed outside Colt’s London headquarters (Source: CIN)

Network Edge: Location Is Everything

One example of the Street Edge pilot in action is with global multiplayer gaming infrastructure and hosting provider Edgegap. This is an ideal use case to prove out the overall Street Edge concept. The company provides its clients’ game servers and hosts them on a global edge network to deliver the best possible player experiences.

Edgegap algorithms find the optimal computing platforms based on player locations around the world. The Street Edge concept shows how a distributed cloudlike infrastructure makes it possible.

A key value, delivered by NodeWeaver, is orchestration of edge applications for multiple use cases and customers. Edgegap hosted games, and a telecom service provider application was tested on the same server simultaneously to demonstrate secure multi-tenancy.

“This is where our Street Edge solution comes into the picture, with its on-demand computing and network capabilities,” says Javier Benitez, Senior Network Architect at Colt Technology Services. “Edgegap is able to instantiate new games and bring them live in real time. This is possible with Street Edge because the algorithm selects the best location, offers the lowest latency, and the best quality of experience to the end users. This is actually the first game server in the industry to run on true Edge infrastructure.”

Edge Compute Technology Opens New Doors

Intel plays a fundamental role in the Street Edge platform, well beyond powering the Advantech Appliance. NodeWeaver takes advantage of technologies such as Intel® QuickAssist Technology (Intel® QAT), Intel’s Data Plane Development Kit, and the OpenVINO toolkit, for accelerated AI inference and maximum efficiency.

“We use Intel software to make sure these hardware capabilities are exposed to the workloads that run on top without requiring special devices, accelerators, or software libraries,” says Carlo Daffara, CEO and Cofounder at NodeWeaver. “We provide an interface that uses these technologies to allow a virtual machine, for example, to immediately recognize that there is an OpenVINO accelerator connected to the hardware and take advantage of it immediately.”

The Street Edge pilot is just the start. “We’re having more and more discussions about who could benefit from this kind of infrastructure,” says Ben Bloomfield, Cofounder and Head of Strategy at CIN. “We’re showcasing the potential for hundreds of customers to dynamically scale up and down as needed. With NodeWeaver, we now have a platform capable of supporting that level of flexibility and scale.”

 

This article was edited by Christina Cardoza, Editorial Director for insight.tech.

About the Author

Georganne Benesch is an Editorial Director for insight.tech. Before this she was an independent writer, authoring blogs, web content, solution guides, white papers and more. Prior to her freelance career Georganne held product management and marketing positions at companies such as Cisco, Proxim and Netopia. She earned a B.A. at University of California at Santa Cruz.

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