Intelligent Data Centres Issue 01 | Page 36

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 www.intelligentdatacentres.com