The network edge is being distributed, evolving from centralized architectures to metro-based interconnections and locating compute and storage physically closer to end users and devices. Initially driven by exploding bandwidth and cost containment, today’s distributed edge is a strategic investment for both service providers and enterprises who see the opportunity to optimize networking, strengthen security, improve user experience and deliver new applications and services from the edge. The edge creates a new point of value creation to foster digital transformation with secure and optimized onramps to the cloud and innovative services like smart factories and vehicle-to-vehicle communications as well as opportunities in retail, healthcare, utilities, public safety and public transport.
Service providers driven to lead the 5G market are ramping up the investment in distributed edge clouds with mass-market adoption forecasted to happen in 2023 (source: Ovum). 5G is a transformative technology that promises to enable a wide range of new services, applications and use cases that will likely influence and change our daily lives. As a pure connectivity service, 5G offers limited differentiation or monetizable value for operators beyond current generation mobile services. Are you going to pay more for improved mobile data speeds? The true value of 5G is in the reduced network latency, an increase in capacity and the ability to breakout traffic at the edge – the combination of which will usher in these new services and applications for consumers, enterprises and governments alike, predicted to yield additional revenues of $3.5B by 2026 (source: Ericsson).
For enterprises, the edge computing opportunity is especially enticing. By 2020, 83% of enterprise workloads will run on cloud platforms, with 41% of those workloads hosted in the public cloud and another 22% relying on hybrid clouds (source: Forbes). As more enterprise workloads hit the cloud, the traffic patterns invert with more work performed off the enterprise network. As legions of office buildings, mobile users, industry 4.0 machines and IoT sensors connect to the cloud from anywhere in a secure and optimized manner, enterprises can no longer afford the cost or performance hit to “trombone” traffic to centralized data centers before accessing the cloud and internet. Enterprises need distributed edge-cloud capabilities closer to end users and devices to improve user experience, provide pervasive security and manage regulatory and data privacy concerns while providing a platform for application developers to build new products and services.
Recognizing the strategic importance of the edge, Juniper Networks has invested in StackPath, an innovative provider of a secure, global edge platform delivered as a service, running mission-critical customer applications and workloads today. With Juniper and StackPath, service providers can now consolidate their edge investments onto a single platform and transform their unique edge real estate into a monetizable asset by:
- Participating in the value chain of OTT delivery by leveraging deep edge CDN services
- Enabling a 5G service edge while supporting network offload
- Delivering new high-value enterprise services from the edge that complement the cloud
- Providing a platform for developers of applications running on the edge, while leveraging the public cloud ecosystems
StackPath is offering real edge computing today. Their edge platform delivers a suite of Edge Compute solutions for virtual machines (VMs) and cloud-native containers, along with managed Edge Services such as content delivery network (CDN), web application firewall (WAF), managed DNS, service monitoring, serverless scripting and DDoS protection. With 45 edge locations strategically close to some of the world’s highest population densities, StackPath offers a secure edge platform that is perfectly designed to give service providers, enterprises, application developers and content providers cost-effective and immediate 5G-ready, edge compute resources on demand. Why wait?
Developing the capabilities to manage an edge-cloud architecture will be fundamental to both service provider and enterprise success, but it can take years to cultivate that expertise. Delaying both time-to-market and application innovation is simply not an option. With its global edge point of presence (PoP) locations and 65Tbps of capacity in production, StackPath is the only solution provider delivering the 5G-ready future edge cloud today, allowing service providers, application developers and enterprises to immediately benefit.
In partnership with StackPath, Juniper is playing an active role in the shift from centralized to distributed architectures for the ‘Cloud + 5G + AI’ era. The StackPath Edge Platform complements Juniper’s Edge Cloud Solution to enable multiple RAN architectures, host core network functions, redistribute traffic, provide local offload and above all, establish a new point of value creation and innovation.
