Edge Computing in Modern Data Centre Operations

Lenovo introduces purpose-built AI-centric infrastructure systems

Lenovo Group has announced a comprehensive new suite of purpose-built AI-centric infrastructure systems and innovations to advance Hybrid AI innovation from edge to cloud. The company is delivering GPU-rich and thermal efficient solutions intended for compute intensive workloads across multiple environments and industries. In industries such as financial services and healthcare, customers are managing massive data sets that require extreme I/O bandwidth, and Lenovo is providing the IT infrastructure vital to management of critical data. Across all these solutions is Lenovo TruScale, which provides the ultimate flexibility, scale and support for customers to on-ramp demanding AI workloads completely as-a-service. Regardless of where customers are in their AI journey, Lenovo Professional Services says that it can simplify the AI experience as customers look to meet the new demands and opportunities of AI that businesses are facing today. “Lenovo is working to accelerate insights from data by delivering new AI solutions for use across industries delivering a significant positive impact on the everyday operations of our customers,” says Kirk Skaugen, President of Lenovo ISG. “From advancing financial service capabilities, upgrading the retail experience, or improving the efficiency of our cities, our hybrid approach enables businesses with AI-ready and AI-optimised infrastructure, taking AI from concept to reality and empowering businesses to efficiently deploy powerful, scalable and right-sized AI solutions that drive innovation, digitalisation and productivity.” In collaboration with AMD, Lenovo is also delivering the ThinkSystem SR685a V3 8GPU server, bringing customers extreme performance for the most compute-demanding AI workloads, inclusive of GenAI and Large Language Models (LLM). The powerful innovation provides fast acceleration, large memory, and I/O bandwidth to handle huge data sets, needed for advances in the financial services, healthcare, energy, climate science, and transportation industries. The new ThinkSystem SR685a V3 is designed for both enterprise private on-prem AI as well as for public AI cloud service providers. Additionally, Lenovo is bringing AI inferencing and real time data analysis to the edge with the new Lenovo ThinkAgile MX455 V3 Edge Premier Solution with AMD EPYCTM 8004 processors. A versatile AI-optimised platform delivers new levels of AI, compute, and storage performance at the edge with the best power efficiency of any Azure Stack HCI solution. Offering turnkey seamless integration with on-prem and Azure cloud, Lenovo’s ThinkAgile MX455 V3 Edge Premier Solution allows customers to reduce TCO with unique lifecycle management, gain an enhanced customer experience and allows the ability to adopt software innovations faster. Lenovo and AMD have also unveiled a multi-node, high-performance, thermally efficient server designed to maximise performance per rack for intensive transaction processing. The Lenovo ThinkSystem SD535 V3 is a 1S/1U half-width server node powered by a single fourth-gen AMD EPYC processor, and it's engineered to maximise processing power and thermal efficiency for workloads including cloud computing and virtualisation at scale, big data analytic, high-performance computing and real-time e-commerce transactions for businesses of all sizes. Finally, to empower businesses and accelerate success with AI adoption, Lenovo has introduced with immediate availability Lenovo AI Advisory and Professional Services that offer a breadth of services, solutions and platforms designed to help businesses of all sizes navigate the AI landscape, find the right innovations to put AI to work for their organisations quickly, cost-effectively and at scale, bringing AI from concept to reality. For more from Lenovo, click here.

Pulsant commits to edge partner ecosystem

Pulsant, a UK-based provider of data centre and edge infrastructure, has launched a partner programme designed to create a partner ecosystem enabling regional businesses and channel partners to jointly capitalise on rising demand for colocation, Edge, and IaaS solutions. Pulsant's new programme offers partners access to its platformEDGE digital infrastructure and aims to develop a collaborative ecosystem by providing Managed Service Providers (MSPs) with new commercial models, sales enablement resources, incentives and dedicated support staff. Not only will this facilitate digital innovation while accelerating hybrid cloud adoption, but it will also allow partners to deliver compelling solutions for their clients without major capital outlays. Wendy Shearer, Director of Partners and Ecosystems, comments, "The UK Digital Strategy emphasises the need for partnerships to drive innovation. As organisations seek to take advantage of AI, IoT and other transformative technologies, they require robust regional infrastructure supported by a strong ecosystem. "Regional firms often lack these resources to build successful digital infrastructure investments. Our interconnected ecosystem strengthens their ability to capitalise on high-growth markets such as AI or IoT, turning collaboration between enterprises, service providers, platforms and connectivity companies into competitive advantage." Pulsant's established environment already includes over 200 IT service providers, 100 SaaS platforms, 500+ enterprises, and connectivity providers including LINX and Megaport. Combined with its 12 regional data centres, this ecosystem provides the foundation for channel partners and their clients to fully leverage emerging tech capabilities. "The digital economy demands robust infrastructure combined with thriving partner ecosystems to foster sustainable growth and transformation," Wendy adds. "Our programme facilitates that collaborative environment regionally." To support the programme's expansion, Pulsant bolstered its channel team by hiring a Head of Partnerships and three Regional Partner Development Managers. For more from Pulsant, click here.

Gcore launches FastEdge, a serverless edge computing product

Gcore has announced the launch of FastEdge, a serverless product revolutionising application deployment and performance. Designed for cloud-native development, FastEdge is a low-latency, high-performance solution for creating responsive and personalised applications without the complexities of server management. FastEdge offers serverless edge execution, leveraging Gcore’s expertise in cloud technology, AI, and security. The service enables developers to deploy decentralised apps globally, bypassing the need for server configuration or infrastructure maintenance. This innovation is built on its robust content delivery network (CDN), distributing custom code across over 160 edge nodes worldwide. This ensures near-immediate response to user interactions for exceptional app responsiveness. The high-speed performance at the heart of FastEdge derives from the WebAssembly (Wasm) runtime environment. WebAssembly boasts an ultra-fast startup time, launching applications multiple times quicker than traditional container-based solutions. The isolated sandbox environment of FastEdge provides enhanced security, protecting against malware and ensuring a consistent, high-performance experience. FastEdge also supports lightweight AI model execution at the edge, streamlining the process of building, testing, and deploying gen AI apps. This feature eliminates the need for developers to create their own AI infrastructure, significantly accelerating the time to market in a rapidly evolving industry. The use cases for FastEdge are diverse, catering to frontend and full-stack developers, as well as network and infrastructure professionals seeking advanced network management solutions. Currently, in beta, FastEdge is available for free to JavaScript and Rust developers, with future plans for Go and other languages. Pricing details for the full release will be announced shortly. Read more latest news from Gcore here.

Why regional internet exchange infrastructure is key to edge computing

By John Hall, Managing Director, Proximity Data Centres Edge computing pre-supposes ‘blink of an eye’ response times, which in turn, requires low latency networks for transmitting and processing large volumes of data and images as fast as possible. This puts huge emphasis on data centres being physically close enough to the network edge and their connection to local fibre and or 5G/6G networks. The good news is the UK’s regional fibre infrastructure is advancing at pace through the work of the major fibre providers, carriers and metro network specialists. Connecting to more strategically located edge data centres across the UK, this is ensuring much greater accessibility to high-capacity fibre and greater bandwidth availability, including, in traditionally underserved areas. Moreover, 5G is finally here and 6G is on the horizon.    However, there’s still a roadblock on the full potential of edge computing when it comes to delivering optimised latency and data transit performance, in any UK location. And that is the overly centralised internet exchange model which has been in place since the mid-90s. Simply put, there is already too much data going through a limited number of internet exchanges. And this is impacting on response times and data transit costs as data volumes grow exponentially. While the traditional centralised model of internet exchanges in the UK has served us well to date and port sizes have increased from 10Mb to 400Gb to help manage surging data traffic, it is no longer viable for all internet traffic to be routed via a handful of exchanges. In the same way that the early ISPs realised that keeping traffic local drove down costs and improved performance, we now need more regional internet exchanges complementing the existing infrastructure model. Together with edge data centres, regional exchanges play a key role by keeping traffic local, thereby helping ensure the lowest possible response times, while at the same time, preventing user data transit costs from rocketing. The availability of these resources at a local level will also support digital businesses, regional tech hubs and bring significant economic growth to the regions. These will in turn bring new opportunities to the benefit of local communities. Regional edge data centres are ideally placed to help accelerate the rollout of local internet exchanges and which will support the existing exchange infrastructure. This is why Proximity is in the process of equipping all its current and future regional edge data centres with internet exchange facilities. An approach such as this allows more data and applications to be deployed closer to the users and devices that really need them. Be this for ensuring a totally immersive experience when playing computer games, navigating the metaverse or performing remote surgery. Not to mention manufacturers and other industrial users who can expect major efficiencies and competitive advantage from acting in actual or near real-time from the vast amounts of data harvested from super-connected plant and production lines, all while leveraging AI technologies such as machine vision and learning.  Equally, in the rush to get data and applications closer to users and customers, it is also vital not to overlook power availability as the other edge data centre prerequisite. A continuing shift to decentralised edge computing is seeing more hybrid cloud and HPC deployment, both of which already have high density power to rack requirements. An immersive technology application, for example, such as a virtual 3D virtual reality modelling simulation will demand considerable power to rack to support it - it is already seeing as much as 25MW per rack. There is also the bespoke cooling requirements of many of the emerging IoT and AI-based edge applications to consider.

Pulsant supercharges connectivity to 126 Scottish businesses

Pulsant has championed Scottish business growth by powering up access to its edge compute infrastructure between The Crichton Trust's 85 acre campus, and the Pulsant South Gyle data centre. The infrastructure investment will ensure all local users and campus-based businesses can access Pulsant’s platformEDGE network free of charge, opening up the host of productivity benefits, solutions, and remote working capabilities that edge compute can deliver. By connecting users directly into Pulsant’s South Gyle data centre, the agreement will: Deliver edge infrastructure to the 126 businesses across the Trust site, including the academic institutions and The Crichton Trust itself, including the Ladyfield wellbeing sustainable homes project and The Crichton Quarter Smart Energy project. Encourage businesses across the South of Scotland to connect to high performance compute capability, and benefit from access to the onsite S5GC Hub to develop and test new products and services, helping them to trial new revenue streams at no additional cost. Enable an innovation partner ecosystem at The Crichton Estate to power future digital projects, underpinning the services and technical expertise of the wider campus community – including academia, ISPs, and satellite broadband providers – and improving access to 5G in rural areas across Scotland. The commercial partnership supports the SOSE Digital Strategy to improve connectivity and access to digital transformation opportunities across the region. Access to the latest technology can remove the barriers to opportunities and unlock the potential of local businesses, driving significant advances in sectors from agritech and healthcare to textiles and tourism.

NTT announces new PoP in Denver, Colorado

NTT has announced the expansion of its tier-one global IP network with a new Point-of-Presence (PoP) in Denver, Colorado, at CoreSite’s DE1 data centre facility. This expansion will enable NTT and its global IP network division to further scale its portfolio of global IP solutions to internet, cloud, hosting, CDN and IT service providers and content-oriented companies in this strategic market. The PoP will also support the growing demand for high-quality IP services from global companies and organisations that have established headquarters and operational centres in the Denver area. Additionally, the energy, transportation, media, financial services and industrial sectors, all key drivers of Denver’s vibrant economy, will benefit from more global connectivity and networking options. NTT’s clients at CoreSite’s DE1 facility, which is strategically positioned in the centre of several key national and regional network fibre plants, will be able to connect at numerous capacity levels with diversity and direct connections to multiple points in the global IP network to ensure the highest reliability and the lowest latency in internet services. “The new PoP in Denver takes our global backbone into one of North America’s largest technology and communications hubs,” says Michael Wheeler, Executive Vice President of the Global IP Network division at NTT. “Internet-centric businesses and organisations operating in the area will have direct access to our tier-one network and the high-performance IP solutions they need for their content, data, hosting, cloud and other bandwidth-intensive applications.” “As a leading hybrid IT solutions provider, CoreSite is pleased that NTT and its global IP network have chosen to expand their presence in our Denver data centre campus and join our robust carrier ecosystem where businesses ranging from enterprises to digital platforms can benefit from NTT’s direct IP access,” says Juan Font, President and CEO of CoreSite, SVP of US Tower. “Through this expansion, NTT’s extensive global footprint and diverse set of connectivity solutions will provide great value to our customers.” Click here more latest news.

Spirent brings the network edge into view with its new solution

Spirent Communications has announced the availability of its new over-the-air (OTA) performance-monitoring solution, designed to bring the network edge into the complete end-to-end test and monitoring landscape. The Spirent Mobile Test Platform (MTP) is a small form factor solution, that provides edge service monitoring and remote management. Supporting this handheld device and four SIMs in one functional box, the platform features a patent-pending management technology that enables unprecedented remote monitoring of the customer experience, whatever the chosen location. It also provides operators with central control of test devices at the edge, including software updates and device hardware reboots. “The ability to effectively test and monitor network performance end-to-end must fully embrace the edge,” says Spirent’s Charles Thompson, VP of Product Management. “Assurance solutions need to keep up with increasingly stringent thresholds to ensure performance and quality of experience at the edge during pre-deployment, verification, and ongoing service management. This is why we have developed the MTP.” The MTP enables systematic performance monitoring and ad hoc testing from the edge of the network that can be consumed and integrated for deeper network analytics at a larger scale and provide unrivalled network visibility and analysis. By combining the existing fixed and mobile network assurance solutions with the OTA capability of MTP, customers can now deploy and assure new 5G services to detect and isolate faults in the network.

Iceotope accelerates sustainable Open RAN adoption

Iceotope has announced availability of an efficient and scalable Open RAN solution to support Far Edge computing across the entire telco data centre estate. Created with the most demanding workloads in mind, Ku:l Extreme is a fully integrated, standardised solution that offers greater sustainability, energy efficiency and serviceability for server generations to come. The enterprise-grade open standards-based solution with Intel Xeon Scalable processors will be available for demonstration at Mobile World Congress 2023 on HPE’s booth, 3N10. Ku:l Extreme is the product of a close collaboration between Iceotope, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Intel, and nVent to significantly reduce energy consumption and deliver a sustainable solution across distributed workloads, for both telco service providers and enterprises. Applications in these workloads require ultra-low latency and high scalability to process large volumes of data close to where the data is generated - often in remote locations. The modular design of Ku:l Extreme is highly configurable to enable rapid scalability across all types of deployments. From a single server at a cellular base station to a ruggedised solution for the Far Edge, to an enterprise grade data centre, each Ku:l Extreme unit can easily be dropped into place at any location. The solution supports both high-performance liquid and air-cooled devices while optimising serviceability and simplifying maintenance across the data centre estate. Together with Intel, HPE, and nVent, Ku:l Extreme is bringing data centre class compute to the extreme Far Edge, while helping customers achieve their sustainability and net zero targets. Reduced energy consumption and a faster path to net zero Reducing energy consumption is rapidly becoming one of the top priorities for telcos. Much of the power usage in a telco network comes from RAN sites, as these locations are powered 24/7 - regardless of customer demand. Open RAN, with its open platform and vendor-neutral hardware standards, is seen as an enabler for more energy efficient networks. HPE ProLiant Gen11 servers will be powered by 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors. These processors will support up to twice the capacity without increasing power consumption, compared to 3rd Gen Intel Xeon processors, enabling customers to meet their critical performance, scaling, and energy efficiency requirements. Ku:l Extreme will help accelerate adoption by making reductions in power consumption, while maintaining or enhancing data centre density. A competitive edge at the telco edge With thousands of sites in remote locations, servicing Far Edge devices across a telco network is costly and minimising on-site maintenance is key. Ku:l Extreme delivers market-leading serviceability. It significantly lowers component failures as it doesn’t require server fans, the dielectric fluid reduces thermal stress, and the enclosed chassis makes the units impervious to gases, dust, and humidity. All of this extends the server lifecycle and drives down maintenance costs. In addition, Out of Band Management (OOBM) enables remote monitoring of the health of the server from a single location. David Craig, CEO at Iceotope says, “It’s an honour for us to partner with nVent and work with world-leading technology manufacturers, Intel and HPE. I’m delighted to announce the important outcome of this collaboration - Ku:l Extreme, a class-leading, integrated solution enabling the most demanding workloads to be scalable, efficiently and sustainably operated at the extreme edge.” Phil Cutrone, SVP and GM, Service Providers, OEM, and Telco at HPE says, “The growing importance of Open RAN is clear to see. Operators are looking for ways to meet the demands for low latency, high scalability data processing in remote locations, whilst also reducing the power consumption across RAN sites. Our latest collaboration with Iceotope Technologies addresses these requirements by integrating Iceotope’s Ku:l Extreme chassis with high-performing HPE ProLiant DL110 Telco servers that are workload optimised for RAN. The combined solution enables customers to deliver performance, scaling and energy efficiency improvements, as well as extending server lifecycles and reducing maintenance costs.” Cristina Rodriguez, VP and GM of Wireless Access Networks Division at Intel says, “Ecosystem collaboration is key to accelerate the shift to a virtualized Open RAN. The Ku:l Extreme from Iceotope is another great example of the ecosystem coming together to deliver innovative solutions that can be deployed at scale and can be an additional tool that can help service providers as they work to achieve their sustainability goals.”       “The collaboration between Iceotope and nVent has quickly delivered innovative modular solutions for data centres, edge and now for sustainable Open Ran adaption,” says Anthony Palmer, nVent Global Business Development Manager. “We are thrilled to work alongside Iceotope, HPE and Intel, to create Ku:l Extreme, helping to support edge computing across the telco industry. By using nVent’s flexible and modular portfolio of racks and enclosures and Iceotope’s precision liquid cooling technology, our latest innovation provides a scalable solution for remote environments.”

nLighten launches edge data centre platform in Germany

nLighten has announced that its edge data centres will begin operations in Germany this year. With 10 strategic locations in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hannover, Cologne, Leipzig, Munich, Nuremberg and Stuttgart, customers will have access to a human-size, low latency data centre platform with strategic proximity to their end-users. nLighten’s select locations are well matched to Germany’s distributed economy, with a local presence in key economic zones and aim to provide users within the region with a latency of 2-6ms. This advanced edge data centre platform is a step forward offering for companies wanting to place compute, content or applications closer to their users. I Squared has committed more than $500 million of equity to support nLighten’s growth plans across Europe to deliver solutions for both existing and emerging low-latency applications. "We are very excited to provide our services in Germany," says Harro Beusker, CEO and Co-Founder of nLighten. “We believe that Germany is one of the best places to launch our edge data centre platform with presence in all key economic hubs. From here we will expand into several other European markets.” The nLighten infrastructure model collaborates with the utility sector to support emissions reduction through grid stabilisation and the recovery and export of heat to the community. This creates a new virtuous cycle between increasing data consumption and environmental sustainability.  "The motivation to create nLighten came from our desire to make data centres local, to provide for evolving data use and environmental functions in the community,” says Chad McCarthy, CTO and Co-Founder of nLighten. Target markets and ecosystem nLighten serves companies that require a nearby data centre, or multiple locations across Germany. nLighten creates direct links between customers and service providers, enabling a scalable open digital marketplace running on its infrastructure. This offers enterprises and business partners an extensive ecosystem of carrier-neutral and supplier-agnostic solutions including B2B connectivity, content delivery, networks and cloud services. The company works closely with industry partners, like telcos, cloud providers and system integrators, who advise nLighten customers and offer their services in the data centres. nLighten data centres are both digital and physical marketplaces, providing modern, comfortable office and meeting facilities.

Edge computing key for rapid adoption of Industry 4.0

As the world recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, the global IoT market is anticipated to surpass $1 trillion in 2024 in revenue - where enterprise IoT could account for over 70% of the market share. Against the backdrop, edge computing holds a promise to dramatically improve data processing for mission-critical applications and accelerate the adoption of Industry 4.0, says GlobalData. Kiran Raj, Practice Head of Disruptive Tech at GlobalData, comments, “Edge computing technology is the missing link of IoT, as it processes data at the network edge instead of sending it back to the cloud or a data centre, thus reducing the latency issue for businesses related to their internet and networking infrastructure impacted by the growing number of devices and data.” Abhishek Paul Choudhury, Senior Disruptive Tech Analyst at GlobalData, comments, “When augmented with artificial intelligence (AI) and 5G capabilities, edge computing can provide an effective and efficient means to analyse data in real-time with minimum network latency and server failures. This can help businesses with enhanced privacy, security, scalability, and resiliency.” GlobalData’s innovation radar report, ‘Scaling at the edge: how edge computing is augmenting data processing,’ highlights how edge computing is improving data processing in various sectors across the technology’s value chain. Device edge California’s technology startup Wistron AiEdge (Wistron) has created an artificial intelligence of things (AIoT) and data-driven fleet management platform, ZigFleet, that enables managers to efficiently monitor and manage fleets. It also helps reduce auto accidents, mentors inexperienced drivers in new areas, and optimises fleet routes. This can offer businesses optimum productivity and profitability, while being more environmentally friendly in terms of energy use and carbon emissions. Remote edge Israel-based telecom access solutions company, RAD, has developed an industrial internet of things (IIoT) gateway, SecFlow, for remote end-to-end (E2E) asset monitoring. SecFlow’s edge computing capabilities enable local data processing by assets with numerous sensors instead of using a centralised control system. This allows flexibility in functioning while reducing equipment costs and space requirements. Telco/MEC edge Dubai Integrated Economic Zones Authority (DIEZ) collaborated with the UAE’s telecom giant ‘du’ and US-based software development startup Derq, to develop smart city solutions. They aim to collect and combine data from IoT traffic cameras and sensors to execute real-time edge analytics while enabling infrastructure perception. This can enable vehicle-to-everything (V2X) or 5G applications, actionable traffic, and safety insights to build effective urban organisations and systems that can enhance the quality of life. Paul concludes, “Edge computing is set to disrupt many sectors in the Industry 4.0 era with its cutting-edge capabilities. It is safe to assume that the technology will aid in the better management and analysis of data while significantly increasing the value of IoT efforts. Subsequently, more use cases will emerge as the technology matures further.”