Edge Compute and Private 5G: Ready for Digital Transformation

2022 will be a pivotal year for enterprise digital transformation as modular cloud native edge compute and private 5G network equipment, devices and spectrum become more available. Digital transformation is not an option for enterprises. It is table stakes for enterprises to stay ahead of their competition, drive continuous cost reductions, while creating new offerings to generate new revenue streams. Dell Technologies Services Edge 1.2 release offers edge computing and private 5G, ready now for enterprise digital transformation.

According to IDC, manufacturing and retail businesses are among the top in edge spending forecasts. Retailers understand consumers demand an omni-channel experience. Manufacturing and resources companies are constantly looking for new ways to automate and to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO). Based on a survey conducted by Analysys Mason and Accedian, 76% of manufacturers plan to adopt private 5G by 2024. Automating the detection of defects using sensors or robotics, predictive maintenance to reduce downtime, robotics such as automated guided vehicles (AGVs) to reduce labor costs and computer vision to detect safety compliances are just some examples of use cases where fast computation with milliseconds latency is critical. Private 5G networks provide low latency connectivity for sensors and devices, generating volumes of data to be processed on the premise edge, thereby providing data sovereignty, privacy, control and security to enterprises.

Private 5G provides a stable, reliable network for mission-critical industrial applications such as powering digital mines, closing connectivity gaps in remote mining areas, providing employee safety and increasing productivity. Dell Technologies, a key infrastructure and technology partner of Rogers Business 5G wireless private network (WPN) solution for the launch of the Kirkland Lake Gold's Detour Lake Mine, the second-largest gold producing mine in Canada, provides scalable, modular, virtualized edge infrastructure enabling end-to-end reliability, redundancy and low latency network.

Communications service providers (CSPs) play an important role in the success of enterprise digital transformation. TBR reported CSPs will represent over 77% of the total edge infrastructure market, which is projected to total $100B in 2025. An Analysys Mason and Accedian survey reported 68% of manufacturers are interested in working with managed service providers with the expertise to deploy private 5G network. CSPs can bundle cloud and edge infrastructure, SD-WAN and network security and transport in an as-a-service offering to simplify edge deployment and help enterprises scale their investment according to the growth of the business.

How does an enterprise jump-start the edge transformation?

• Look for cloud native modular infrastructure that supports multiple catalogs of workloads. In today's rapidly changing competitive landscape, a flexible platform for innovation is required that is simple to deploy with confidence, open, composable and disaggregated so IT can mix and match for optimum TCO and investment protection.
• Adopt virtualization and flexible hardware options versus purpose-built kit.
• Use a hybrid cloud approach by moving applications requiring low latency to the user or device generating data.
• Develop an open ecosystem with security built into every layer of the stack.

At Dell Technologies, our Services Edge offering is designed for CSPs and enterprises to succeed in digital edge transformation. CSPs are in the best position by combining their vast array of services from SDWAN, MPLS, mobile networking and their deep services expertise.

Dell Technologies Services Edge 1.2 powered by Intel® Smart Edge and Red Hat OpenShift provides a cloud native edge compute platform able to deliver platform services across many enterprise industries. An integrated orchestration and management console providing a single pane of glass can be deployed in a remote central location supporting multiple sites and tenancy. Dell Services Edge 1.2 security capabilities use a zero-trust model for all connections, users and applications, even its own internal microservices, thereby reducing attack opportunities, supporting your efforts to assemble a zero trust network architecture (ZTNA).

Highlights of this release:

• PowerEdge R750 and Rugged XR11/12 servers powered by 3^rd generation Intel Xeon processors.
• End-to-end solution validation of Dell edge compute platform, Airspan Networks' OpenRange AirVelocity 5G radios and virtualized open RAN software pre-integrated validation of manufacturing use cases with Litmus Industrial IoT edge platform.
• Centralized management and orchestration of compute, connectivity and IoT edge platform.
• VMware SD-WAN access support on the edge node.
• Intrinsic security at every layer and IPSec connectivity.

Airspan Networks is a pioneer in end-to-end open RAN architecture solutions with innovative 5G indoor/outdoor technology, private networks for enterprise customers and industrial use applications, fixed wireless access and CBRS solutions. Airspan OpenRANGE 5G RAN software vDU and vCU are validated on Dell Technologies Services edge platform and Dell Technologies PowerEdge servers designed to accelerate application performance with scalable business architecture and integrated security into the full server lifecycle.

Litmus Edge is an all-in-one Industrial IoT (IIoT) platform designed to unify all OT data, put that data intelligence to work to power applications and scale seamlessly with centralized management. The flexible Litmus Edge architecture lays the foundation for complete, secure, enterprise-scale data flow to enable any IIoT use case and to improve operations at scale.

Dell Technologies believes Services Edge modular approach is the infrastructure solution foundational for mission critical manufacturing use cases as well as across other industries that want to transform their edge for lower TCO and to implement low latency applications for monetization.