EXPERT OPINION
Telco edge data centres:
Laying the foundation for the Smart City
Data volume, mobility
and the Internet
of Things all require
decentralised
computing power as an
extension to hyperscale
data centres. Shibu
Vahid, Head of Technical
Operations, R&M
Middle East, Turkey and
Africa, talks about this
shift to the edge and
explains how telcos can
extend their computing
power to ensure future
requirements can
be met.
36
Issue 01
he growth in private and
business data traffic continues
unabated. And the Internet
of Things, 5G and mobility
now need to be taken into earnest
consideration as they have begun to cause
an additional exponential growth of IP
traffic while requiring ultra-low latency
even in remote places.
T
The hyperscale data centres that service
providers have been investing in will not
be able to fully cover the new network,
computing and storage requirements of
the coming years.
Therefore, telcos will have to extend
computing power to the edge of their
network to support their large, central
data centres.
Service providers and network operators can
prepare for this by setting up the necessary
infrastructures for the periphery in good
time – providing they start doing so now.
This will entail a wide-scale increase
in fibre optic cabling – something that
is presently happening with the many
FTTH undertakings in the region – and
the installation of decentralised micro
data centres.
These micro data centres are autonomous,
automatable and sturdy solutions which
have to be powerful enough to assume a
leading role in the cloud.
When highways become
data centres
A striking application example for edge
computing is the future of road traffic. A
study by the German Fraunhofer research
institute, has shown that for cars to be
fully automated and safe, they would have
to be able to react within 0.1 milliseconds.
The exchange of information with the
environment, with antennas, sensors and
other vehicles would effectively have to
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