Digital Transformation (DX) is crucial for enterprises to stay competitive and to grow their businesses. Enterprises must have a technology strategy that leverages Edge compute, 5G, and other LAN/SDWAN connectivity to run mission-critical, vertical applications that require low latency. These applications are located as close to the edge as possible—back from the centralized cloud to the distributed edge. Enterprises benefit from data sovereignty through the adoption of a private network that includes compute, connectivity, storage, secured access on-prem, platform services, and application workloads.
According to Research and Markets, in cellular networks, edge computing is “virtually essential” for 5G because edge compute facilitates optimization of 5G network resources.
Dell assists enterprises with their Digital Transformation and creates innovative Edge vertical use case solutions. To aid Communication Service Providers (CSPs) in the acceleration of 5G adoption, Dell's Telecom Systems Business group created the Private Wirelesswith Airspan and Expeto solution. This solution began as an edge compute platform, adding Private Mobility technology options and value-added application platform service options to enable enterprises to realize use cases that are critical for, and relevant to, their business success.
The goals of the DellPrivate Wireless solutions are to:
Provide a Dell horizontal compute platform that supports multiple forms of access (WiFi, Wireline, Wireless, SDWAN) with modular software stack, automation and scalable across multi-sites and multi-tenants.
Provide a turnkey solution and full services suite from design, build, deploy and operate the solution.
Enable deployment flexibility, simplicity, and interoperability with ecosystem partners, and integration with the CSP’s Operations Support System/Business Support System.
Ensure platform is intrinsically secure.
Accelerate Digital Transformation by providing application platforms services for rapid on-boarding of vertical enterprise applications.
Telecom industry challenges
Mobile Area Networking (MAN) is the new Local Area Networking (LAN). Telecom operators continue building mobile communications systems such as 4G in support of DX. As these transformations are realized, telecom technologies are proactively adapting to the exponential increase in data and services. These data and services, until recently, were homogeneously provided by regionalized public cloud infrastructure systems. With new network access methods such as private mobility, DX is spawning data outside the public cloud. Data flows are becoming more decentralized and traverse a distributed set of telecom services. Therefore, policy enforcement must distinguish these new DX traffic patterns.
These new telecom services, which are strategically placed outside the centralized data center and closer to the end user, are referred to as Edge computing. Edge computing (as shown in the following figure) brings cloud services and capabilities including computing, storage, and networking physically closer to the end-user by locating them on more widely distributed compute infrastructure, typically at smaller sites.
In contrast to hyperscale cloud computing where all the data is sent to central locations to be processed and stored, edge computing local processing aims to reduce time and save bandwidth needed to send and receive data between the applications and cloud, which improves the performance of the network and the applications.
Edge computing offers mobile operators several opportunities such as:
Differentiating service offerings using edge capabilities
Providing new applications and solutions using edge capabilities
Enabling customers and partners to leverage the distributed computing network in application development
Improving network performance
Achieving efficiencies and cost savings
Figure 1. Edge computing types
As edge computing technologies and definitions are still evolving, different terms are sometimes used interchangeably or have been associated with a certain type of stakeholder. For example, mobile edge computing is often used within the mobile network context and has evolved into Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC)—adopted by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI)—to include fixed and converged network edge computing scenarios.
DellPrivate Wirelesswith Airspan and Expeto technology is developed in accordance with ETSI definitions. This technology is adopted in several 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) specifications as part of the next-generation telecom services outside the public cloud.
This jointly developed design offers various network policy services in the LTE/5G era by incorporating the following guiding architectural principles:
Make highly geographically distributed computing resources available through a connected system.
Make resource connectivity transparent and secure regardless of physical location or network access type.
Use modern orchestration technology for the seamless delivery of digital applications and services through open standards and interfaces.
As connectivity and data consumption increase dramatically, telecom operators are constantly refining infrastructure operation to maintain efficiency while delivering on the escalating usage demand. Operators can maintain or exceed Quality of Service (QoS) and Service Level Agreement (SLA) demands by bringing the services operation to the edge. These service levels may be reflected as new or improved services to customers.
The DellPrivate Wireless VxRail manager allows for multiple VxRail satellite edge nodes to be centrally managed (as shown in the following figure). The controller handles fundamental management operations such as software updates, provisioning, and configuration—allowing for rapid and consistent deployment across multiple locations.
The VxRail manager also allows for centralized orchestration of the various VMs and applications running on the edge nodes. This orchestration allows centralized management for configuring new applications and then running them at each site, delivering consistency while simultaneously allowing for local nodes to respond according to demand.
The controller also includes a centralized reporting capability, so usage and health across all the sites can be monitored and used to drive capacity planning and other activities.
Figure 2. DellPrivate Wirelesswith Airspan and Expeto - powered by Dell VxRail
Dell Technologies has embraced the Edge Computing trend and the massive network transformation that are taking place in the telecom industry. The Services Edge will become an anchor point that drives the adoption of decentralized radio access methods, next-generation network core, and infrastructure technologies, enabling operators to take advantage of the enterprise digital transformation. Dell Technologies is focused on edge verticals and use cases.
Dell Technologies is also focused on adding private connectivity options, such as SD-WAN and private 4G/5G/CBRS, to various use cases in the business-to-business and business-to-customer markets. This integrated offer enables operators to reduce the time-to-market to take advantage of the momentum in the digital transformation industry and focus on the use cases instead of the networking.
Enterprise adoption
Each enterprise must evaluate its connectivity. Effectively interconnecting various services and devices in each network is challenging. By bringing private mobile networking on-premises through Edge Computing, IT can completely manage the network securely through Wi-Fi, 4G/5G , or wired access. With Edge Computing, the enterprise can bring services from the centralized data center to the branch office.
Environmental complexities
As they expand into enterprise digital transformation, operators commonly encounter the following environmental complexities:
Technological challenges:
The complexity of integrating various components, passing security requirements, and managing the platform at scale makes it difficult to launch new services quickly.
The lack of common service delivery platforms prohibits accommodating network, applications, and IT workloads, and makes it difficult to deliver services using the customer's own cloud-Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) or Dev Ops model.
Unique challenges of Telecommunications Service Providers (TSPs) at the edge:
The complexity of building out the cloud distribution model from the network edge to an on-premises edge.
The need to leverage the existing assets of the TSP, including last-mile connectivity and 4G/5G networks, while incorporating new technologies that extend into the customer premises (for example, SD-WAN).
About the solution
The DellPrivate Wirelesswith Airspan and Expeto solution is based on Dell Technologies VxRail systems. This is a horizontal edge compute platform that enables modular platform services and applications. This platform includes centralized provisioning, cloud native management, and lifecycle management as listed below.
Management cluster—VxRail with Tanzu for cloud-native readiness
Centralized orchestration—With multi-site and multi-tenancy
Select aggregation and normalization—Of Dell and VMware APIs in the enterprise
Lifecycle and configuration management—Managing Edge Solutions firmware and software
Role-based Access Control (RBAC) and user provisioning—With integration into Evolved Packet Core (EPC) modules and 3rd party infrastructure
Private mobility use case—4G reference; shared and licensed spectrum access provided by the Mobile Network Operator (MNO)
4G RAN—Airspan LTE indoor radio (licensed spectrum and CBRS radios are supported)
4G Enhanced Packet Core from Expeto—Distributed 4G EPC with mobility management for User Equipment (UE) such as phones, devices, clients, and so on via CBRS radios
IMSI/SIM management and networking solutions—Provided by Expeto
Private to public roaming function—Supported by Expeto