Edge computing facilitates data processing closer to where the data is consumed and generated. Typical data sources are devices in Internet of Things services (e.g. in manufacturing and automotive industries) with high requirements on short response times, which cannot be met by processing in a central data center. Edge computing also enables capacity savings for data intensive services and geographical regulatory compliance.

Edge computing has great potential to help communication service providers improve content delivery, enable extreme low-latency use cases and meet stringent legal requirements on data security and privacy. To succeed, they need to deliver solutions that can host different kinds of platforms and provide a high level of flexibility for application developers. Beyond its abilities to reduce network traffic and improve user experience, edge computing will also play a critical role in enabling use cases for ultra-reliable low-latency communication in industrial manufacturing and a variety of other sectors.

The main benefit of edge computing is the ability to move workloads from devices into the cloud, where resources are less expensive, and it is easier to benefit from economies of scale. At the same time, it is possible to optimize latency and reliability and achieve significant savings in network communication resources by locating certain application components at the edge, close to the devices. To efficiently meet application and service needs for low latency, reliability and isolation, edge clouds are typically located at the boundary between access networks or on-premises for local deployments.

Based on the key factors shaping the edge-cloud ecosystem, we along with our partners can work with your organisation to define the approach to edge computing:

• Reuse industrialized and proven capabilities whenever possible.
• Ensure backward compatibility.
• Capitalize on existing ecosystems.

It is our view that successful development of an edge-computing solution requires a solid understanding of the use cases, associated deployment options and application-developer communities. It is of critical importance that the solution is able to onboard third-party applications and/or application environments, utilizing methods defined by operations support systems. Rather than building a new application ecosystem and platform, we strongly recommend reusing industrialized and proven capabilities, utilizing the momentum created and ensuring backward compatibility.