ANDREAS SILA EDGE DATACENTRES
REDUCING LATENCY IN 5G NETWORKS
WITH THE HELP OF EDGE DATA CENTRES
The next wave of technological innovation is already here with new applications transforming the way we live, work and travel. The huge adoption of these new services drives exponential growth in the total demand for data, leading data centre operators to rethink the way they traditionally organise the design and deployment of networks and data centres. With more data capacity and higher computing speeds needed, bringing networks closer to the edge and deploying many smaller distributed data centres seems the most viable solution, writes Andreas Sila , market manager Data Centre/LAN at HUBER+SUHNER.
O ne million or more The scale of IoT adoption is growing at an unprecedented rate. This, coupled with the mounting consumption of customer streaming and high-resolution videos is placing more demand on networks to deliver greater speed and bandwidth capabilities. Critical to support the increased number of connected devices is the transformation of 5G networks, which are enabling many new applications such as next-generation Augmented Reality (AR), smart factories, smart cities and autonomous vehicles. Integral to the operation of 5G services is real time data transference, which requires reliable network performance. To avoid delays or even interruptions on the applications, the network must perform with ultra-low latency to transfer real time data, which many new 5G applications critically rely on. MICRO DATA CENTRES REDUCE LATENCY To keep up with the exponential growth in connected devices, the deployment of networks and data centres must match this scale. As the connected new Internet of Things (IoT) devices will be sold each hour by 2021, according to research by Gartner.
range from small clusters of “Edge Cloud” resources located within street infrastructure, or come as a containerised plug and play data centre to be placed where needed. The location of the Edge Data Centres provides a concentrated connection to the close proximity of the area and its connected devices. This enables end users to access the network and experience higher capacity and low latency. In addition, Edge Data Centres have the potential to reduce network costs as the movement of data and computing storage is located much closer to the source of connection. DEPLOYED EDGE DATA CENTRES HAVE DIFFERENT NEEDS For Edge Data Centres to live up to their potential to provide 5G-ready network performance, the type of performance required needs to be taken into consideration and will therefore have a direct influence on the design, size, costs and location. As a result, there are many di erent types of Edge Data Centres on the market with each one providing individual network needs and operating with di erent requirements. This is unlike traditional centralised data centres where the resources are shared across many connected entities. With Edge Data Centre an organisation or an
society propels forward to deliver real time services, it is critical not only for networks to deliver high capacity and speed but also to deliver real-time data transference. To achieve this, the network needs both centralised large-scale data centres and small de-centralised micro data centres located much closer to the end user devices. These micro data centres, also known as Edge Data Centres are a new approach to support the next wave of 5G network applications and new services. Edge Data Centres facilitate reliable connectivity across billions of connected devices using the same network. Moving the process of data within the network closer to the end user, or so called to the edge, reduces the distance the data must travel, helping to strengthen network performance and reduce network latency. It also brings computing power to the edge so the data can be processed or stored closer to the location it must be delivered to, reducing computing needs on the cloud data centre and making the network more e cient in general. This quality of network performance is integral to deliver 5G applications which require rapid response times and low latency to operate. Edge Data Centres deployed on a large scale create a supporting network of strong network connectivity. They
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| ISSUE 18 | Q3 2019
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