To accelerate your digital transformation, you may be seeking a way to expand operations at the edge—one that doesn’t require a dedicated development team or tax your already busy IT staff. Intel® Smart Edge commercial software provides a simple one-box solution for the enterprise edge. It delivers multi-access edge computing (MEC) capabilities and a network-optimized, software-defined edge experience. In a world where more than 75 percent of enterprise-generated data will soon be created and processed outside a traditional centralized data center or cloud,1 your business needs to keep up. Intel Smart Edge can help.
Solution for the Enterprise Edge
The Intel Smart Edge commercial offering is a software-defined platform that delivers turnkey compute capabilities at the network edge. Ideal for the enterprise, it offers business terms and conditions for rapid deployment, support models bound for service-level agreement (SLA), and 24/7 support.
With Intel Smart Edge, your company can deliver next-generation mobile data services and applications, go to market faster, act on insights from ever-growing amounts of data, and improve the customer experience. You can do all of this from a single console and without a development team. This turnkey edge platform also enables your company to effectively onboard and manage edge applications and network functions right where they're needed. By quickly collecting and processing data from previously untapped sources at the edge, you can uncover new revenue sources and draw new insights.
You can use Intel Smart Edge commercial software with cloudlike responsiveness across any type of underlying network infrastructure including Wi-Fi, wired, and 4G or 5G/LTE wireless. Emerging technologies, such as 5G, are enabling enterprises to implement private network solutions in warehouses, factories, educational institutions, enterprise campuses, sports arenas, and retail locations. The opportunities are endless.
Architecture
The Intel Smart Edge solution is composed of a single controller and multiple nodes backed by enterprise-ready software and support.
The Intel Smart Edge controller offers centralized provisioning and management. From a single console, IT teams can manage and update nodes, orchestrate node applications and virtual machines, and capture reports from the edge.
Intel Smart Edge nodes bring communication and compute power to the edge, unifying wireless and wired networks. The nodes support both standard virtual machines and containers and implement zero-trust security, enforcing application, device, and network policies. You may choose to place multiple nodes at a single site or a single node across multiple sites; all nodes report back to the Intel Smart Edge controller.
See a platform overview and more information on Intel Smart Edge capabilities.
Location Matters
Today, nearly every industry is taking advantage of cloud computing to some extent. For many enterprise use cases, however, key applications for edge computing still run inside the enterprise data center. Intel Smart Edge brings those applications to the edge, offering enhanced communications services and on-premises compute, network, and storage for legacy and emerging compute requirements. This approach cuts round-trip delays and overall latency, allowing users instantaneous access to applications and data.
Intel Smart Edge enables an on-premises approach without custom software development or heavy IT involvement. Instead, you gain the benefits of an enterprise-ready solution even at locations that don’t have dedicated technical staff. Business support packages—with 24/7 support available—help ensure uptime and give you peace of mind.
By bringing applications to the action, your organization can improve user experience and gain critical intelligence faster.
Edge Connectivity
Long-Term Evolution (LTE) and 5G are changing the face of connectivity. These network improvements will have far-reaching impacts on how people live, work, and play all over the world. They deliver higher speed, enhanced capacity, and increased bandwidth compared to 4G. Organizations today face the challenge of how to best take advantage of these emerging networks, which are not yet widespread.
Intel Smart Edge software, with its enterprise-level technical support, empowers companies with or without dedicated development teams to stand up private 5G and LTE wireless networks—maximizing responsiveness at the edge and offering support for the most demanding workloads. Rather than relying on a traditional private wireless network or a public carrier-class network, having a high-speed, private mobile core on-premises can increase both security and control. These elements are always critical for large operations and especially so in the harsh environments common at the edge.
Intel is dedicated to maximizing the potential of 5G in its full range of applications and use cases, from homes to workplaces and beyond.
Real-World Applications
Industrial, retail, medical, and telecommunications are just a few sectors that can benefit from using Intel Smart Edge. The following are examples of enterprise uses in deployments and proofs of concept.
Shorten the time to action: A major transportation manufacturer wanted to take advantage of the low-latency benefits of Intel Smart Edge for safety applications. This included tracking safety zones, such as active equipment or painting booths, and detecting workers who cross into dangerous areas. With Intel Smart Edge, shortening the time to action makes it easier to keep everyone safe without employing large development teams to handle applications at the edge.
Facilitate easy communication: A large port authority analyzed the adoption of Intel Smart Edge, along with a build-out of its wireless infrastructure, to facilitate network communications between ship captains and port services. The port authority plans to use Intel Smart Edge for the compute power and low latency required to enable new applications, such as edge-deployed enterprise resource platform (ERP) systems. Adopting Intel Smart Edge commercial software allows tablet-equipped crane and forklift operators at the port authority to more safely and efficiently retrieve containers and place them in the correct location. Additionally, the port authority can process surveillance video in real time using Intel Smart Edge servers for logistics, physical security, and container-inspection applications.
Enable retail application diagnostics: Retailers and remote branch offices are finding it difficult to isolate performance issues without on-site technical personnel. With the processing power and simple manageability delivered by an Intel Smart Edge solution at the edge, IT and technical staff can gain real-time data and analytics without specialized hardware or employees in the store or branch office. Fast problem isolation and resolution contribute to an excellent customer experience.
Software-Defined Edge
Intel Smart Edge delivers a software-defined edge platform that uses Wi-Fi, wired, wireless, LTE, and 5G network assets for applications and workloads in IoT, AI, media, and security services. IT and technical staff can use it to onboard applications and manage apps and network functions with cloudlike responsiveness from a single console.
1. Smarter with Gartner, What Edge Computing Means for Infrastructure and Operations Leaders, October 3, 2018.