New Heavy Reading report highlights the combined role of carriers and hyperscalers in current edge computing deployments

Heavy Reading collaborated with Ericsson, Google Cloud, Intel and Viavi to conduct a survey of 101 global CSPs that have launched edge computing solutions or are planning to do so within 24 months. The aim was to understand how communications service providers (CSPs) and hyperscale cloud providers (HCPs) work together to enable edge computing. One of the drill-downs of the survey examined the value proposition of working with hyperscalers in a hybrid cloud environment, as well as the impact of automation on carrier opex.

Leveraging automation

The survey results make it clear that CSPs rely on automation to lower the overall costs of managing 5G networks for edge use cases (see the figure below). Every stage of the network lifecycle has already benefited from automation, and its impact will continue to grow with the adoption of predictive artificial intelligence (AI), the use of continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) development and software testing techniques, the use of cloud native computing, the adoption of containerized network functions (CNFs) and more. As edge deployments scale in terms of locations, compute requirements and use cases, automation becomes a must-implement to keep cost increases in check. Growth in the number of edge computing locations cannot be supported without the ability to automate deployment, update software and scale locations up and down on demand without operator intervention. For the most part, survey respondents were pragmatic when asked to estimate the percentage of opex savings expected from the shift to automation. Two-thirds of the respondents estimated opex savings of 10–30%.

Automation is key to lowering edge opex

Q: What percent will telecom network automation help you reduce the operational cost of managing your 5G networks for edge use cases? (Source: Heavy Reading, 2023)

How hyperscalers help

The survey asked respondents what motivated them to move to a hybrid telco/edge cloud platform for their edge implementations. The top response, chosen by half of the respondents, was "flexibility to scale deployments quickly and as needed." This was the top value proposition regardless of region, edge deployment status or CSP revenue tier. Such speed and flexibility are the products of the automation and AI capabilities that hyperscalers bring to the table, enabling new locations to be brought up quickly, new compute power to be allocated (or removed) as needed and new workloads and applications to be deployed on-demand.

There is statistically relevant variation among some of the other reasons when looking only at survey respondents from CSPs with more than $5bn in annual revenue. For these largest of carriers, the second most popular response, "operating network and edge applications more efficiently across hybrid cloud and multiple clouds," fell by 9 percentage points to 35%, indicating that end-to-end management is not as much of a benefit as are speed and flexibility of deployment. Even more notably, the score for "modernizing security across hybrid cloud and multiple clouds" (already near the bottom) fell an additional 10 percentage points to 10% for the more than $5bn crowd, suggesting that security falls more on the "concern" side than on the "value proposition" of the ledger.

Interestingly enough, "leveraging the hyperscaler's mobile core network infrastructure to help ensure carrier grade performance and reliability" did not vary in the percentage of responses from the largest carriers, nor did "… offloading telco/cloud infrastructure." The hyperscalers have come a long way in overcoming uncertainty among CSPs (including the largest) about the HCPs' ability to deliver carrier-grade performance and be entrusted with their telco/cloud infrastructure.

Value propositions for hybrid cloud emphasize speed, agility and scalability

Q: What are the top value propositions that would cause you to consider a telco/edge cloud platform? (Source: Heavy Reading, 2023)

For more insights into how different CSP demographics are working with the hyperscalers … well, you would have to read the rest of the report.

Read the full report for more edge computing insights

Heavy Reading's survey results show that carriers have committed to edge computing and are progressing rapidly with implementation. At the same time, they are expanding their partnerships with the hyperscalers, particularly in the areas of automation and AI. To gain more in-depth details of service providers' perspectives on edge computing deployment and their hyperscaler partners, download and read the full report now.

This blog is sponsored by Google Cloud.