Finland's Elisa Oyj has deployed its first fully automated edge data center site, which is the second edge site to go into commercial production this year. According to the official release, this project combines Wind River Studio Cloud Platform as the production-grade distributed Kubernetes solution for managing cloud infrastructure, User Plane Function (UPF) application from Elisa's current 5G core vendor, and the capabilities of Wind River Studio Conductor, a platform that delivers a single pane of glass to manage and automate applications deployment in large-scale distributed environments.
Elisa said the automated data centre processes deliveries 90 percent faster than conventional manual methods. This solution enhances data traffic flow at the network edge and brings more capable and customized 5G services for businesses in need.
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Advancing Edge Computing with Automation
Elisa and Wind River aim to harness the benefits of edge computing and network automation to benefit customers. Earlier this year, in February 2023, Elisa said that the two companies deployed Europe's first distributed edge cloud solution within a public 5G network. Now, the fully automated data centre represents a leap forward, optimizing the quality of 5G services by streamlining data processing at the edge of the network.
Elisa stated that the potential applications of edge computing and automation include the interest of diverse industries, such as manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, and telecommunications, both within Finland and across the globe.
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The companies stated the advantages of the automated data centre in three key areas below:
Streamlined Network Changes: The preparation time for network changes is significantly reduced, with hundreds of test runs performed in the time it once took to manually execute only a few tests.
Faster Deliveries: Deliveries processed through the automated data centre are 90 percent faster than those using manual procedures. Furthermore, the overall deployment time is reduced by around 50 percent.
Enhanced Data Traffic Quality: Automation allows multiple simultaneous operations, minimizing human error risk and improving the data traffic quality at the network edge.
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According to the official release, the fully automated data centre is strategically located at the network edge, leveraging the Wind River Studio cloud platform and the Wind River Studio Conductor system, enabling centralized management and automation for 5G network applications.
The Wind River Studio features a cloud-native, Kubernetes and container based open-source architecture, enabling the deployment, operation, and future development of distributed edge network implementations.
Combined with Elisa's 5G network's User Plane Function (UPF), this data centre facilitates efficient and high-quality data processing at the network's edge. Additionally, Wind River's Conductor platform integration enables fully automated edge computing deliveries, ensuring faster and more efficient utilization of the data centre's resources at the network edge.
