Companies are being transformed in a revolutionary way by 5G

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For years, people have been talking about the transformative power of 5G. Today, we are at the dawn of this new era, and it’s time for business and IT leaders to lay the groundwork to capitalize on the opportunities offered by 5G and its complementary technologies, including Edge Computing.

In this new era, 5G telecommunication services will be a critical enabler of enterprise digital transformation. These emerging technologies provide the foundation for new products, services and business processes that will keep companies at the forefront of their industries.

These opportunities stem not only from the faster speeds and lower latency of 5G networks, but also from the way 5G is being deployed, which is different from previous generations of network technology. From the very edge of the network, 5G is being deployed on industry-standard servers with a software virtualization layer running on top of them.

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This software-based approach to networking enables communications service how to save australia number in whatsapp providers to offer tailored services and connectivity based on workload, such as data traffic prioritization, performance guarantees, enhanced security, and network slicing – creating multiple virtual networks running on a shared infrastructure. Suddenly, the network is more flexible than ever.

While 5G changes many of the industry’s basic rules, the new Telco is about more than just 5G. It’s also about Edge computing. More specifically, the arrival of 5G networks allows enterprises to more fully capitalize on Edge computing, which moves computing and analytics closer to the points where data is generated and used, rather than sending data to and from servers in cloud data centers.

And this is where the 5G story becomes even more powerful. The combination of 5G and edge computing enables new use cases that extend from the core of the data center to the edge of the network. Through the ability to bring computing as close to the edge as possible, these use cases go far beyond allowing people to do more on their mobile devices and in their connected cars.

In a fully realized 5G world, enterprises will partner with their carriers and service providers to build solutions for use cases that would not have been possible with previous-generation networks. These use cases leverage capabilities such as network slicing and prioritization, along with low latency and high bandwidth, to enable new use cases, from delivering telemedicine services and remote surgeries to enabling augmented reality and virtual reality experiences.

Along the way, the crossover between traditional cloud technologies and telco technologies will give rise to telco cloud models. Unlike today’s massive public clouds, telco clouds will encompass tens of thousands of small, interoperable clouds that interact with public clouds. With telco technology behind them, these geographically separated clouds will offer higher availability and reliability than today’s public clouds to meet the demands of business-critical applications.

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The 5G era will also be marked by the intersection of virtualization and containers for edge clouds. Containerization is a technology where applications run only when they are needed, and without the full traditional operating system stack that traditional applications rely on. Furthermore, containerized applications break down large, complex tasks into much smaller pieces, and call upon the containerized application quickly on demand in varying quantities to meet current demand.

By containerizing applications, capabilities are delivered in discrete blocks that can be instantiated, replaced, and shut down as needed in real-time. These containers will be used to provide both the core network functions of 5G networks, as well as end-user workloads. By implementing Telco Edge clouds, telecom operators will be able to maximize their 5G investment by running both core network functions at the Edge, as well as enabling service models for customer workloads – on the same underlying infrastructure.

Telco Edge clouds will also support temporal use cases where applications/workloads are run for short periods of time, as needed, for specific use cases. Examples of these temporal use cases include augmented reality (AR), where information is only needed when requested, or connected cars, where individual containers could be run to support each connected car – but only run when there are connected cars. This rapid spin-up of containers only when they are needed allows applications to scale on demand – and from an Edge cloud perspective this dynamic scaling ensures that the limited resources of each Edge cloud node can be adjusted based on prioritisation requirements.

While enabling these new use cases, the ability to offer disaggregated micro-clouds will allow service providers to more easily monetize unused capacity in the network. Essentially, an Edge Cloud delivered by a telco could consist of thousands of micro-data centers across the country – all interconnected to provide both network functions and host customer workloads. The result is a highly distributed cloud that supports on-demand consumption models in parallel with core network services.

Keys to the Article

The rise of 5G networks is not just the next step in the ongoing evolution of telecommunications. It is a highly significant leap forward that opens the door to unprecedented possibilities and new capabilities for businesses – but only for those that are prepared to seize the day.

For IT and business leaders laying the foundation for 5G-enabled solutions, services and business processes, it’s important to think big. Think about things you can do now that you couldn’t do before. Think about how your business can optimize and leverage this new technology to drive new revenue streams, improve your operations, reach more people, do something better.

And then start your journey – today.

For more information

In the next post in this blog series, we’ll explore how 5G and Edge technologies are enabling new Telco solutions that go far beyond simple connectivity. In the meantime, to explore 5G-enabled Edge solutions, and learn how different industries are putting them to work to drive measurable results, visit DellTechnologies.com/Edge.

To learn more about how you can accelerate your AI journey, visit Intel AI Builders.