Evolution of the Next Generation Central Office

Learn more about how Intel is enabling the edge through its architecture and how the evolution of the next generation office is an evolution of the entire network.

Transcript

So when we look at the evolution of the central office, we really think about it as an evolution of the entire network, if you will. And we think about com service providers desire to truly implement a horizontal or a homogeneous network, where you have very similar NFEI infrastructure or cloud-ready infrastructure located in central core locations, to regional data centers, to next generation central offices. And if you're able to do this, you're able to deploy those VNFs, similar VNFs, throughout your entire network.

And as traffic patterns increase, and even dynamically shifting those VNFs to when and where you need them in the network to best meet customers quality of experience requirements. When we think about the next generation central office, we definitely have an eye towards the back half of LTE, so later in this decade. But we also do have an eye towards 5G. And when you really think about 5G, you think about 5G putting the power truly in the innovator's hands.

So now innovators can truly innovate and create individual applications for specific vertical markets. And some of these applications will take advantage of the underlying high speed network that 5G will deliver. So what comes top of mind is truly the ability to deliver very low latency services that also do require high bandwidth. So when we think about next generation central offices, it's critical that you have the right amount of computes very close to the users so you can deliver those low latency services and also deliver the right bandwidth to ensure you're hitting the quality of experience expectations that not only business have, but also consumers have as well.

Intel's enabling the edge with really a plethora of technology. We're investing in all sorts of different silicon ingredients, truly from Intel architecture to FPGAs to ethernet. And when you think about Intel architecture, and particularly the data center's roadmap, we truly deliver top to bottom scalability with our Intel Atoms T3000, our Xeon D product family, as well as our Xeon scalable processor family.

Now in addition to those silicon technologies, we're truly partnering with the industry at large in everything from open source community, so when you think about Linux foundations is DB to K. You think about the [? chord ?] activity, as well as you think about ONAP, as well as creating an ecosystem with Intel network builders, which we're very proud that it's over 260 strong and we have over 80 unique solutions that are targeting NFE that we very much use in next generation central office and other edge data center locations.

There are many benefits to cloudifying the edge. And when com service providers look to lay out their networks in the future, I believe they will lay out a more of a horizontal network where they have homogeneous computing really from central core network locations to regional locations to the edge itself. And with that in mind, you're going to able to deploy those virtual network functions whenever and wherever you need them in the network. And once you are able to do that, and since you have a commonality in your network, you can utilize your similar OSS VSS model.

And because you have computes spread throughout the overall network, you can better manage the traffic hagger out there. So in some cases, you may keep traffic locally. In other cases, you may want to push that traffic all the way back to central core locations. And then finally, one of the things we're all excited about, is new immersive media applications that do require both low latency and high bandwidth. And for that, having that edge of the network become much smarter, more intelligent, more scalable, you'll be able to handle all those new use cases with much greater ease.