What must change?
Several things need to change before CSPs can overcome these barriers and start to benefit from building and delivering edge services.
The first is about shifting the perception that these challenges are solely the burden of the telecoms sector. They are not - the world of cloud-native service providers needs to overcome similar issues. Speak to any CTO in either market and it is clear that CSPs want to build cloud strategies, whilst cloud services providers are trying to build telco strategies.
There is mutual benefit to be had from a tighter connection between these two worlds. Cloud companies can help CSPs connect with developer communities, and telcos can work hand in glove with hyperscalers and emerging services companies to help them understand network environments better, so they can design services that take network technologies into account. But, as two very different industries, both are going to need help to bridge the gap.
If CSPs are to successfully deliver edge services in a way that engages enterprise customers, they also need to change how they support them. They need to dial down the control they have traditionally enjoyed over complex network infrastructure and make it simpler for customers to manage edge network resources and services themselves – including infrastructure, data, and applications. Part of this important ‘cultural’ change involves recognizing that B2B enterprise customers will already have existing network and device asset management frameworks in place, and do not want complex orchestration and integration.
This requires new tools that can connect the dots between these existing barriers. The good news is that enterprise customers do not want these solutions to be complex. Essentially, they want three things from any tool that supports their use of edge services:
A clear view of the edge computing resources they are using
A clear view of the connectivity they are consuming, and a way to predict what they will need in the future so they can manage the road ahead
Tools that foster interoperability between existing siloed systems, so the introduction of edge services minimizes the friction with their existing technology stack
Platforms such as Capgemini Engineering’s Intelligent Edge Application Platform (IEAP) are designed to do exactly this. They enable integration between multiple technologies that break down the barriers of technical complexity; they federate services across different operator networks in multiple countries or regions and they connect the contrasting expertise and approaches of CSPs and cloud companies in a way that makes it simple for enterprises to draw tangible benefits from edge infrastructure.
Multiple data sources converge on IEAP and similar platforms. Specific edge-native AI algorithms then handle vast amounts of real- time information to make sense of it all. This approach does more than merely collate and organize data, it presents information in insightful and actionable ways to encourage decisions that deliver tangible business outcomes.
