Daily Archives: February 4, 2021

Cloud spending was up 33% in 2020, reaching $142 billion.

Spending on cloud infrastructure from Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and others reached $39.9 billion in the fourth quarter of last year up $10bn year on year.

Collectively, AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud earned 58% of the industry's revenues. For the full year, cloud spending was up 33% to $142 billion from $107 billion in 2019.

AWS remains the top cloud provider with a 31% share of total spend in Q4 2020, which is slightly down on the 32.4% share it had in Q4 2019. Nonetheless, its revenues grew 28% year on year in Q4 2020.

SEE: Kubernetes security guide (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

AWS and Google parent Alphabet reported Q4 2020 earnings this week. AWS Q4 2020 revenues reached $12.74 billion with operating income of $3.56 billion. Google Cloud, which includes G Suite/Workplace, earned $3.83 billion revenue in the quarter but had an operating loss of $1.24 billion. Microsoft reported its Q2 earnings in January, but doesn't break out Azure revenues.

In Q4 2020, Google Cloud revenues grew 58% while Microsoft Azure revenues grew 50% year on year. Trailing AWS's 32% share of the cloud market for Q4 though, Microsoft Azure had a 20% share while Google Cloud had a 7% share. In Q4 2019, AWS had a 32.4% share of revenues, followed by Microsoft Azure with 17.6%, and Google Cloud with 6%.

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions on movements have boosted demand for all sorts of tech including laptops sales, video meetings through Zoom and Microsoft Teams, and cloud spending.

Canalys said this quarter's spending on cloud was driven by "intense demand for cloud to support remote working and learning, ecommerce, content streaming, online gaming and collaboration."

SEE: AWS is opening yet another cloud computing region

"The rate of digitalization, led by cloud, is gathering pace. Companies are now more confident about releasing budgets for business transformation," said Canalys research analyst, Blake Murray.

"Large projects that were postponed earlier in the year are being re-prioritized, led by application modernization, SAP migrations and workplace transformation. Healthcare, financial services and pharmaceuticals are among the industries leading the way, but even those under most pressure are diverting investments to cloud, opening up new revenue streams and diversifying business models."

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Cloud computing: AWS is still the biggest player, but Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud are growing fast - ZDNet

Cloud computing took a star turn this past year for its major supporting role in keeping the economy running during the coronavirus pandemic, as it facilitated the day-to-day workflows of businesses and propped up organizations from retailers and supermarkets to medical and educational institutions.

If organizations had been hesitant about shifting their IT infrastructure from on- premises to the cloud, the pandemic was a kick-starter to adopt at least hybrid environments.An already thriving cloud industry benefited from tailwinds as on-the-fence organizations were forced to accelerate plans for moving and modernizing workloads to keep their operations running as the world turned to remote work and learning, more online buying and telehealth.

Top cloud providers Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud saw hefty double-digit cloud revenue increases in 2020, a year that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said spelled the dawn of a second wave of digital transformation sweeping every company and every industry. And the three contributed to a new quarterly record for hyperscale operators capital expenditures, with much of it targeted at data centers, according to Synergy Research Group.

Cloud-based communication and collaboration tools have helped keep remote workers and their bosses connected, and cloud-based contact centers helped companies stay close to their customers across industries, including restaurants, retail, transportation, healthcare and state unemployment systems.

Cloud customers are embracing its cost-savings, speed and scalability, their access to provider technologies such as data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence, and their ability to incorporate third-party, cloud-native SaaS solutions. And cloud providers, independent software vendors and consulting partners increasingly are trying to address their enterprise business needswith industry-specific vertical software solutions.

This years Cloud 100 celebrates the coolest cloud computing players20 in each categoryproviding cloud infrastructure, monitoring and management, security, software and storage.

Customers are trending toward hybrid and multi-cloud environments to meet their IT infrastructure requirements, including latency needs, and industry and regulatory standards. CRNs cloud infrastructure picks range from the big three and legacy tech companies making cloud plays to niche and private cloud players and vendors with container and serverless offerings.

Three of the Cloud 100 monitoring and management companiesFlexera, Scalr and Snow Softwarewere leaders in Gartners Magic Quadrant for Cloud Management Platforms. In storage, companies ranging from Acronis to Zerto are taking the lead in what IDC forecast to be the fastest growing IT infrastructure segment for cloud environments.

Security providers making the Cloud 100 are helping cloud adopters address the challenges of management, segmentation, compliance and governance against the backdrop of an increase in security breaches and cyberattacks. SaaS is the largest segment of the public cloud services market, and the 20 companies highlighted by CRN are standouts as the industry shifts from on-premises licensed software to the new subscription-based models.

Continued here:

The 100 Coolest Cloud Computing Companies Of 2021 - CRN

The enterprise IT space over the last year has seen a rising prominence in cloud computing. Since the advent of the pandemic that, among other things, caused a massive shift to work-from-home schemes across the world, cloud infrastructure services spending too grew briskly.

This is according to industry analyst firm Canalys, which claims that total cloud services market expenditure for full-year 2020 grew by 33% to US$142 billion, up from US$107 billion in 2019. Despite an initial slowdown in large consultative-led projects, demand was higher than expected.

In the last quarter of 2020 alone, cloud infrastructure services spending increased 32% to US$39.9 billion, Canalys said, following heightened customer investment with the major cloud service providers and the technology channel.

Total expenditure was over US$3 billion higher than the last quarter and nearly US$10 billion more than Q4 2019 according to Canalys data. This is again the largest quarterly expansion in dollar terms, as continuing pandemic restrictions drove intense demand for a cloud to support remote working and learning, e-commerce, content streaming, online gaming, and collaboration.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) maintained its majority market share at 31%, enjoying 28% growth over 2020s third quarter and making investments across its global partner ecosystem to sustain its momentum.

After a mixed Q3 in terms of customer performance, AWS had a resurgence in customer investment. Microsoft Azures growth rate, on the other hand, accelerated once again, up by 50% to reach 20% of the market share, maintaining its second-place.

Microsoft has also benefited from the continued high demand for Teams, Windows Virtual Desktop, and other Microsoft services running on Azure as lockdowns tightened.

Google Cloud had the greatest growth of the big four cloud providers, seeing a 58% increase to reach 7% market share, putting it in third place, just ahead of Alibaba Cloud.

Alibaba Cloud grew 54% in the same time to account for 6% of the total market. It remained the leading cloud service provider in the Asia Pacific region, including China. It updated its hybrid cloud strategy during the quarter, with the launch of its Hybrid Cloud Partner Program and on-premises appliances targeting small and medium-sized businesses. The program will enable partners to plan, design, and resell Alibaba Cloud services with free licenses and unlimited CPU cores.

Canalys said demand for cloud services stayed strong across all enterprise customer segments, including industries most affected by the pandemic, such as retail and manufacturing.

Its research analyst Blake Murray said, The rate of digitalization, led by cloud, is gathering pace. Companies are now more confident about releasing budgets for business transformation. Large projects that were postponed earlier in the year are being re-prioritized, led by application modernization, SAP migrations, and workplace transformation.

Murray also said healthcare, financial services, and pharmaceuticals are among the industries leading the way, but even those under the most pressure are diverting investments to the cloud, opening up new revenue streams and diversifying business models.

At the same time, small and medium-sized businesses continue to turn to cloud services to help them maintain their operations and control costs. Murray reckons that the approval of Covid-19 vaccines and the start of mass vaccination programs will further increase business confidence throughout 2021, while remote working and learning will continue.

This will maintain dependence on cloud services and drive momentum in spending, though customers will become increasingly aware of the cost, security, and complexity challenges of greater cloud adoption.

All the major cloud providers are also increasing their investments in the channel, both to leverage the consulting and managed services capabilities of partners, and to expand sales capacity to drive cloud consumption.

Microsoft holds the largest share of the indirect channel with Azure, though AWS and Google Cloud are gaining ground. Meanwhile, as customers deploy different workloads across public, private, and edge cloud infrastructures, they are looking for independent partners with capabilities across multiple cloud providers.

As organizations start to consider moving more mission-critical workloads to the cloud, they will look to partners to define the right cloud platforms and strategies, as well as solve the most pressing issues around cost management, security, sovereignty, and hybrid IT integration.

More here:

Cloud computing spend increased by a third in 2020 - TechHQ

NEW YORK, Feb. 3, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --Tech-sector 'Oscars,' The Cloud Awards, honors its top choices for Cloud-based innovation this week and says leading technology providers deserve recognition for their part in managing the global health crisis.

Categories for the 2020-21 Cloud Awards included 'Most Innovative Use of Data in the Cloud' and 'Cloud Project of the Year.'

Cloud Awards head of operations James Williams said: "The Cloud Awards team is impressed every year by the sheer magnitude of Cloud innovation. However, during the last 12 months we've faced so many unanticipated, exigent and at times appalling challenges from the pandemic.

"Cloud technologies are ever-present in our remote working tools, our scientific research and development and our globalized community, and the breathtaking innovation of the technology sector deserves to be honored.

"Whether helping to solve issues related to this global crisis directly or indirectly, the final winners of the 2020-21 Cloud Awards deserve a small place in history for their tenacity and commitment to excellence during a devastating pandemic.

"Last year, our sister program The SaaS Awards raised $3,555 for the WHO's COVID-19 relief fund. It's now open again for entries let's hope we can start to see more submissions focused on software aiding normal, everyday business operations."

Lead judge Richard Geary said: "Cloud technologies make a good platform for turning around urgent applications rapidly and at scale. This was clearly evidenced in the range of innovative technological responses to the pandemic we have seen."

Hundreds of organizations across the globe entered the Cloud Awards. You can view the full shortlist here: https://www.cloud-awards.com/2020-shortlist/.

The SaaS Awards, a sister recognition platform to the Cloud Awards, is now open for 2021 entries. This business software awards program promotes solutions across a range of industries, with a May 21 deadline: https://www.cloud-awards.com/software-as-a-service-awards

Cloud Awards Winners:

Contact:James Williams(212) 574-8117[emailprotected]

SOURCE The Cloud Awards

Link:

Cloud Computing Awards Honor "Breathtaking Innovation in Pandemic" - PRNewswire

5G, with its promised high-speed, low-latency performance, is finally here and with it a plethora of intriguing cloud computing developments loom. It is a near-future tech boon that is impossible to overstate as 5Gs impact on the ability to create, store, use, and share data will be felt across most business sectors, especially those using the Internet of Things (IoT), AI, and machine learning. Already redefining business networks, 5G will also shift the role that cloud computing and networks play in storing, moving, and accessing data as innovation drives and creates more technological applications for digital business transformation.

Redefining the Function of the Cloud

Transforming Edge Computing

The Dawn of Network Cloudification

Converging in the Cloud

Over the past ten years, cloud computing has been an integral part of maintaining healthy IT infrastructures as businesses demand better, quicker collaboration and productivity from their distributed workforce. Increasingly safer and scalable, the cloud has been a remarkable workaround for universally slow network speeds allowing the easy transfer and sharing of large files between devices while also providing backup and recovery services to safeguard that data in case of a cybersecurity attack or natural disaster.

With the rollout of standalone 5G networks picking up pace in 2021, the cloud faces a renewal of purpose. 5G will enable mobile devices to easily transfer large volumes of data. The cloud and its various architectures (hybrid, on-premises, and public) will be necessary to manage the increase in storage needed for these devices to house the onslaught of data. This is especially true at the enterprise level, leaving cloud providers to up their storage capacity and adjust prices accordingly.

Yet, cloud providers stand to benefit too as investment in cloud services are set to explode, with growth forecasted at 18.4% in 2021 to total $304.9 billion, up from $257.5 billion in 2020.

The pandemic validated clouds value proposition, said Sid Nag, research vice president at Gartner. The ability to use on-demand, scalable cloud models to achieve cost efficiency and business continuity is providing the impetus for organizations to rapidly accelerate their digital business transformation plans. The increased use of public cloud services has reinforced cloud adoption to be the new normal, now more than ever.

Also read: Can Immersive Technology Remake the Workplace Experience?

Born alongside the proliferation of internet-connected (IoT) devices, edge computing cuts latency issues in applications associated with real-time data processing by bringing that processing and storage closer to the endpoints where that data is being collected and consumed, rather than to a centralized or cloud-based location possibly thousands of miles away. Notorious bandwidth hogs, IoT devices generate enormous amounts of data during their operation, creating an expensive bottomline for organizations that rely on IoT devices. By localizing data processing and storage, edge computing services and devices reduce bandwidth usage by processing data and only sending the relevant data through to a central data center or cloud.

In a 5G world, edge computing and IoT are the twin engines of Industry 4.0, the fourth iteration of the Industrial Revolution that sees automation and smart technology transforming manufacturing practices that will allow for autonomous cars, smart cities, telehealthcare, and better data analytics. Currently, with 20 billion IoT devices already in use and other future-forward technologies requiring low latency for critical operations, network congestion is almost inescapable. 5G and edge computing are poised to set each of these technologies into new tracks of innovation by localizing the processing and storage of their systems.

Without edge compute, 5G would continue to rely on back-haul to centralized cloud resources for storage and processing, diminishing much of the otherwise positive impact of latency reduction enabled by 5G, Furioms 5G, IoT and Edge Compute Trends notes. Thus, an edge-compute approach enables users and devices to store and access much higher volumes of data by way of direct access to the Internet rather than relying on transport through the core of cellular networks.

To meet new demand pressures, Furiom suggests that edge computings infrastructure will need enhancements in concert with data centers, virtualization providers, and network integration companies. It is all part and parcel to another evolutionary element of cloud computing: network cloudification.

Also read: How AI Will Be Pushed to the Very Edge

Many computing giants, including Intel and IBM, are investing in network cloudification, which is the process of extending cloud platforms, technologies, and virtualization capabilities throughout a network to make it more agile, flexible, and scalable. As consumer and enterprise bandwidth needs grow, networks are harnessing 5G to rapidly move toward this software-defined architecture to meet operational and application demands.

Network cloudification allows network providers to basically optimize and automate the network for greater functionality of applications operating on the edges of the network. To achieve this requires moving away from a hardware-driven infrastructure to a software-based architecture using software defined networking (SDN), network function virtualization, microsegmentation, and 5G-MEC (multi-access edge computing).

5G-driven network cloudification is the gas pedal needed to accelerate emerging technologies operating at the networks edge into hyperdrive by:

As 5G continues its global rollout, its anticipated benefits to digital business transformation as a consequence of its impact on cloud computing are already shining through. Bringing together long talked about technologies in a collective push, the marriage of 5G and the cloud promises to launch many paradigm shifts in operational efficiencies for businesses, while at the same time overseeing the convergence of mobile and enterprise networks, server platforms, emerging technologies, and the business of IT itself. As these lines continue to be crossed and blurred, the definition of a network will change and along with it the relationship between service providers, innovation, and end users.

Also read: Threat Intelligence Software: Top Products of 2020

More here:

The Impact of 5G on Cloud Computing - IT Business Edge

TURIN, Italy--(BUSINESS WIRE)--By 2025 Cloud Computing will lead the ICT infrastructure market and Edge Computing will become an exponentially growing market, according to Replys new research From Cloud to Edge, made possible by Replys Trend SONAR proprietary data-driven platform and the support of Teknowlogy Group.

The research explores the use of both Cloud Computing and Edge Computing technologies in Europe-5 (Italy, Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium), and Big-5 (USA, United Kingdom, Brazil, China, India) clusters in order to understand the evolution of the market.

In the next 5 five years Edge Computing will be an exponentially growing market in all Europe-5 and Big-5 clusters countries. Germany will be the biggest European market for both Cloud Computing and Edge Computing; the USA will be the dominant market worldwide.

The growing usage of IoT solutions, the closer combination of Information Technology and Operational Technology and the integration of Industrial Control Systems in the IT stack, as well as future 5G campus solutions for low-latency applications, are accelerating the need for edge solutions.

In fact, Edge Computing can support companies with computing tasks that cannot be done in the cloud and offers clear advantages when dealing with low latency, connectivity, security or privacy and transmitted data volumes are an issue.

Edge and distributed cloud architectures will increase the speed of data processing and reduce time lag. Edge computing, alone or in combination with Cloud Computing, will play a key role to enable technologies like autonomous vehicles, digital factories, smart cities, digital health, smart tracking and much more.

Hybrid models like Edge Cloud will be pushed by the hyperscalers and the wide 5G rollout will give Telcos and their service partners a relevant role in the new ecosystem, especially thanks to mobile-edge computing which is able to ensure very low latency without local infrastructure, with compute units not on-premise but extremely close from to a cell tower.

Edge computing is here to stay. It is already starting to reshape enterprise computing and it can play a vital role in IT architectures. All the industries that need to perform the computing tasks as close to where data is gathered as possible will benefit from Edge Computing. At Reply, were already supporting global enterprises to design and implement architectures that leverage the best of Edge and Cloud Computing, while ensuring privacy and cybersecurity commented Filippo Rizzante, CTO Reply.

In addition, the research indicates that Cloud Computing became the most popular ICT focus during Coronavirus peaks. COVID-19 has intensified the global spread of Cloud Computing technologies after 15 years of steady growth: across the world, millions of users started to use cloud-based platforms to collaborate, shop online, and for entertainment purposes.

Cloud technologies are key to being able to react and restart activities. By 2021 in both Europe-5 and Big-5 clusters the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)/Platform as a Service (PaaS) market will grow - in all scenarios - between 50% and 55% (vs. 2019).

The Software as a Service (SaaS) market is also set to grow rapidly in every country analysed. In particular, by 2025 it is predicted to double in the USA, UK and all Europe-5 cluster countries, while likely to quadruple in India and China.

For more insights download the full research From Cloud To Edge.

ReplyReply [MTA, STAR: REY, ISIN: IT0005282865] specialises in the design and implementation of solutions based on new communication channels and digital media. As a network of highly specialised companies, Reply defines and develops business models enabled by the new models of AI, big data, cloud computing, digital media and the internet of things. Reply delivers consulting, system integration and digital services to organisations across the telecom and media; industry and services; banking and insurance; and public sectors. http://www.reply.com

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REPLY: From Cloud to Edge Research Predicts the Rise of Edge Computing and Unveils the Main Trends in the Cloud Computing Market - Business Wire

The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential of cloud computing technology for classifying protected tomato plants under different watering treatments. Two tomato varieties, HeZuo 903 and WanShiRuYi, were used in protected cultivation for two seasons. Three water treatments were conducted (normal watering, no watering during the first fruit-swelling period, and no watering during the both fruit-swelling periods). The visible near-infrared reflection spectra of the tomato canopies were collected during the fruiting period. Three spectral datasets were used, including the original reflection spectra, the first derivative of the reflection spectra, and the absorbance spectra.

The successive projections algorithm(SPA) was used to select data from six wavebands (483, 557, 674, 783, 869, and 964 nm) as optimal wavebands. The cloud computing platform was built using the Hadoop and Spark frameworks. The MLlib machine-learning library from the Spark framework was used to build a multilayer perceptron classifier (MLPC) and one-vs.-rest classifier (ORC). These multi-class classifiers were applied to the spectral datasets (original, first derivative, and absorbance) for the two tomato varieties under different water treatments. For each classifier, 70% of the data was randomly selected for training and the remaining 30% was used for prediction.

Training and prediction were conducted on the cloud computing platform. The MLPC had better classification accuracy than the ORC. Among the three spectral datasets, the first derivative of the spectra had the best classification performance, while the reflection and absorbance spectra had similar performances. Using the full waveband spectrum provided higher classification accuracy than using only the optimal wavebands. Furthermore, the tomato canopy spectrum classification performance was better for the WanShiRuYi plants than the HeZuo 903 plants. Moreover, the collected spectral dataset was increased in size to evaluate the operating efficiency of the cloud computing platform when processing big data.

The operating efficiency was significantly improved by increasing the size of the spectral dataset or the number of nodes in the platform. Finally, the python and TensorFlow were used to implement the CNN algorithm, and conducted classification and analysis of the spectral datasets. The results showed that the MLPC and ORC algorithm had better classification performance than the CNN algorithm in classification of spectral data.

Read the complete study at http://www.researchgate.net.

Xia, Ji'An & Zhang, WenYu & Zhang, WeiXin & Yang, Yuwang & Hu, GuangYong & Ge, DaoKuo & Liu, Hong & Cao, Hongxin. (2021). A cloud computing-based approach using the visible near-infrared spectrum to classify greenhouse tomato plants under water stress. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture. 181. 105966. 10.1016/j.compag.2020.105966.

Read more:

Study on cloud computing approaches applied to growing tomatoes - hortidaily.com

The enterprise IT space over the last year has seen a rising prominence in cloud computing. Since the advent of the pandemic that, among other things, caused a massive shift to work-from-home schemes across the world, cloud infrastructure services spending too grew briskly.

This is according to industry analyst firm Canalys, which claims that total cloud services market expenditure for full-year 2020 grew by 33% to US$142 billion, up from US$107 billion in 2019. Despite an initial slowdown in large consultative-led projects, demand was higher than expected.

In the last quarter of 2020 alone, cloud infrastructure services spending increased 32% to US$39.9 billion, Canalys said, following heightened customer investment with the major cloud service providers and the technology channel.

Total expenditure was over US$3 billion higher than the last quarter and nearly US$10 billion more than Q4 2019 according to Canalys data. This is again the largest quarterly expansion in dollar terms, as continuing pandemic restrictions drove intense demand for a cloud to support remote working and learning, e-commerce, content streaming, online gaming, and collaboration.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) maintained its majority market share at 31%, enjoying 28% growth over 2020s third quarter and making investments across its global partner ecosystem to sustain its momentum.

After a mixed Q3 in terms of customer performance, AWS had a resurgence in customer investment. Microsoft Azures growth rate, on the other hand, accelerated once again, up by 50% to reach 20% of the market share, maintaining its second-place.

Microsoft has also benefited from the continued high demand for Teams, Windows Virtual Desktop, and other Microsoft services running on Azure as lockdowns tightened.

Google Cloud had the greatest growth of the big four cloud providers, seeing a 58% increase to reach 7% market share, putting it in third place, just ahead of Alibaba Cloud.

Alibaba Cloud grew 54% in the same time to account for 6% of the total market. It remained the leading cloud service provider in the Asia Pacific region, including China. It updated its hybrid cloud strategy during the quarter, with the launch of its Hybrid Cloud Partner Program and on-premises appliances targeting small and medium-sized businesses. The program will enable partners to plan, design, and resell Alibaba Cloud services with free licenses and unlimited CPU cores.

Canalys said demand for cloud services stayed strong across all enterprise customer segments, including industries most affected by the pandemic, such as retail and manufacturing.

Its research analyst Blake Murray said, The rate of digitalization, led by cloud, is gathering pace. Companies are now more confident about releasing budgets for business transformation. Large projects that were postponed earlier in the year are being re-prioritized, led by application modernization, SAP migrations, and workplace transformation.

Murray also said healthcare, financial services, and pharmaceuticals are among the industries leading the way, but even those under the most pressure are diverting investments to the cloud, opening up new revenue streams and diversifying business models.

At the same time, small and medium-sized businesses continue to turn to cloud services to help them maintain their operations and control costs. Murray reckons that the approval of Covid-19 vaccines and the start of mass vaccination programs will further increase business confidence throughout 2021, while remote working and learning will continue.

This will maintain dependence on cloud services and drive momentum in spending, though customers will become increasingly aware of the cost, security, and complexity challenges of greater cloud adoption.

All the major cloud providers are also increasing their investments in the channel, both to leverage the consulting and managed services capabilities of partners, and to expand sales capacity to drive cloud consumption.

Microsoft holds the largest share of the indirect channel with Azure, though AWS and Google Cloud are gaining ground. Meanwhile, as customers deploy different workloads across public, private, and edge cloud infrastructures, they are looking for independent partners with capabilities across multiple cloud providers.

As organizations start to consider moving more mission-critical workloads to the cloud, they will look to partners to define the right cloud platforms and strategies, as well as solve the most pressing issues around cost management, security, sovereignty, and hybrid IT integration.

Dashveenjit Kaur| @DashveenjitK

Dashveen writes for Tech Wire Asia and TechHQ, providing research-based commentary on the exciting world of technology in business. Previously, she reported on the ground of Malaysia's fast-paced political arena and stock market.

Read this article:

Cloud computing spend surged by 33% in 2020 - Tech Wire Asia

Moving the compute power from a device to the network edge with split rendering gives an indication of what is to come for next generation immersive user interfaces. This breakthrough, which will ultimately enable 5G mobile mixed reality use cases, is one of the many use cases we are developing today at our D-15 innovation lab in Santa Clara, California, with partners Qualcomm and Nvidia. However, this is the first step. To make such demanding edge use cases happen at scale worldwide, we need to work to increase the interaction between the network and cloud infrastructure stacks.

We call this the network compute fabric, and service providers will play a critical role in enabling and orchestrating this new computing paradigm, one which will have a substantial impact on digitalization of the world, like Industry 4.0.

In this computing paradigm, connectivity, compute and execution will form a single unified, integrated execution environment for distributed applications providing integrated adaptive compute, connectivity, security and storage for any place, time, device and application.

Producing great performance with extended bandwidth, high throughput, increased security and millisecond latency, this integrated fabric will cater for new use cases at the edge such as closed-loop industrial control systems, industrial robotics, eXtended Reality (XR) with real-time synchronous haptic feedback and negotiated automatic cooperative driving.

Our D-15 innovation testbed, in addition to our many R&D locations worldwide, serves as the epicenter for much of this collaboration and co-creation. At many of these hubs, were developing live edge computing use cases such as 5G gaming, edge and network slice combined orchestration and 5G enterprise augmented reality such as the 5G Gemba Walk developed together with Magic Leap, which leverages mobile and spatial technologies to continuously optimize production workflows and open new possibilities for augmented reality use cases.

Todays service providers are undoubtedly best positioned to take the lions share of such revenue opportunities in emerging edge ecosystems. The evolution to cloud native network functions and distributed cloud computing enables service providers to move beyond traditional connectivity-service models and opens new doors to adjacent industries and expanding enterprise opportunities who are curious to explore the new edge computing use cases. Here, they have a distinct advantage to deliver intelligent traffic routing from the mobile network to the optimal location of the industrial application, in addition to having people on the ground and expert knowledge of network topology, network efficiency, device management and more.

For telecom players, this market will evolve rapidly and have significant consequences on the wider tech industry. Already by 2023, 25 percent of 5G use cases are forecast to be reliant on edge computing. By 2030, we expect a significant part of 5G revenue to be found in enterprise and IoT services. At the same time, according to our latest 5G consumer potential report, the cumulative revenue opportunities for digital consumer services alone will reach USD 131 billion over the next ten years.

This truly is a game changer for the telecom industry. As enterprises are digitalizing with 5G, service providers have the opportunity to decide which role they want to adopt in this emerging market. They can also make in-roads, while market roles are still being defined to establish a strong foothold in the network-cloud ecosystem.

For service providers, this will take place in three phases: creating a value proposition in the edge ecosystem, developing the network as a platform for enterprise, and preparing for the evolution toward the high performance network edge.

5G is the perfect companion to cloud computing both in terms of its distribution and the diversity of compute and storage capabilities. New on-premises and edge data centers will continue to close the gap between resource-constrained low-latency devices and distant cloud data centers, leading to driving the need for heterogeneous and distributed computing architectures.

Today service providers can capture the first wave of edge computing use cases by focusing on dedicated deployments on-premises where connectivity performance requirements are stringent, and by exploring on-network application deployments at the point of presence of todays Packet Core sites. Here, integrating service orchestration with 5G Core, irrespective of who owns the infrastructure, will be the key to success. This will allow service providers to dynamically expose and monetize the network based on information variables such as performance, efficiency gains, pricing and more firmly establishing a value proposition in the edge cloud ecosystem. Cloud providers are important partners to extend the global ecosystem of developers and address the enterprise opportunity. Service providers can leverage their infrastructure capabilities, and gain an easy start to address the edge opportunity.

Many service providers are already making good headway in this area. Earlier this year, we announced collaboration agreements with Telstra, Telefnica Deutschland and other service providers to develop advanced solutions in this space.

The availability of large-scale computation at the edge of the network will transform how enterprises deploy and consume IT. In the coming years, as compute and storage integrates deeper within the network stacks with the evolution of 5G, service providers arguably stand to gain the most. In this evolving computing paradigm, service providers should look to provide full end-to-end orchestration, with defined service layer agreements, in a self-service and automated way.

Orchestration and network exposure will continue to play a key role moving forward, enabling industrial applications to interact with the network resources in advanced ways such as selecting location, quality of service, or influencing the traffic routing to deliver on application demands.

Supported by the principles of cloud-native, the ecosystem should work together to avoid fragmentation and establish a global set of network application programming interfaces (APIs) which enable full automation of industry use case requirements. Today, were actively engaging global industry players and consortia such as 5G ACIA, 5GAA and AECC to help shape this development and make it easy for developers to automate lifecycle management across service providers.

At Ericsson, were strongly investing in the wireless edge and wireless WAN space to enable service providers to grow into emerging enterprise markets. Earlier this year, we announced the acquisition of Cradlepoint which provides a strong foundation for this.

Were also active in various ways from a standardization, technology and use case alignment perspective where we engage with device vendors, cloud providers, operations technology vendors and application developers with specific domain knowledge, for example to define common network APIs.

Follow Ericsson Researchs journey to the network compute fabric.

For more insights, visit our edge computing page.

Read our white paper: Edge computing and deployment strategies for communication service providers.

Watch all of the 5G Things videos from our recent D-15 event on-demand today.

Read more here:

5G and cloud: Building the next cloud era - Ericsson

from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept

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Daily Deal: The 2021 Cloud Computing Architect Bundle - Techdirt