IDC predicts that as many as 50 billion smart devices will be connected to the Internet by the year 2020, and more than 40% of data in the future including smart phones, personal wearable devices, and various smart devices such as automobiles will need to be marginalized. Analyze, process, and store. In order to meet the surge in demand at the edge of the network, the network trend is being virtualized based on SDN/NFV, flattened and enhanced, and the user plane of the core network is sinking to the base station. In this context, By combining the IT service environment with cloud computing at the edge of the network to build smarter mobile network capabilities, MEC is seen as a key technology and architectural concept for the transition to 5G.
At the recently concluded MWC2018, many manufacturers from the industry chain demonstrated their development achievements in the field of MEC. It is foreseeable that in the era of 5G, MEC will become the hottest technology in the network field.
Three major trends lead the trend of IoT evolution
As an innovative model of data calculation, storage and application at the edge of the network close to the physical entity or data source, edge computing has become one of the key directions for the development of IoT technology. With the development of the edge computing industry, it has also begun to Shows three major trends.
The first is the convergence with cloud computing, and the two become synonymous with edge clouds to build a powerful and prosperous network on the edge of the computing ecosystem. As we all know, compared with cloud computing, edge computing can effectively break the network bandwidth constraints and better meet the needs of real-time response. Edge computing is more agile, real-time, intelligent, and has better data processing capabilities. But just as Intel, who has been immersed in the edge field, has repeatedly emphasized that edge computing will not replace cloud computing, the two will show complementary and coordinated development status: On the other hand, with the increase of data volume, the burden of cloud computing is increasing. If you want to achieve sustainable development, you need the edge layer to 'help out' to do data preprocessing. On the other hand, in many application scenarios, cloud computing can Stand high and summarize the data to achieve a comprehensive application.
On MWC2018, China Unicom released the “White Paper on China Unicom's Edge-Cloud Platform Architecture and Industrial Ecology” and announced the official launch of the planning and construction of Edge-Cloud pilots and thousands of edge data centers in 15 provinces and cities nationwide. Can be regarded as operators in the edge of the cloud in the heavy lifting. It is foreseeable that the future of edge computing and the relationship between the cloud will be closer.
The second is to use SDN/NFV to boost the establishment of the edge network. On the MWC2018, China Telecom announced that Intel will jointly promote the sinking of core network capabilities based on the NFV architecture to build an edge data center and deploy it to a new generation of end offices as a network transition. The important breakthrough point is that Telecom will use the NFV and MEC technologies to cloudify the CDN network elements and sink them to the edge nodes close to the end user's side, and deploy them to the edge data centers in the next-generation end office to ensure the resources. Flexibility and maximization of use will, to some extent, effectively relieve network pressure and provide users with a better sense of experience.
Third, artificial intelligence will play a major role in the field of MEC. If the introduction of massive data opens up the edge of prosperity, artificial intelligence is more like a subsequent upgrade iteration tool for MEC, and can further complete the intelligence of big data. Distribution and processing, constantly tap the potential of data, release the value of data, and further promote the development of edge computing.
Industrial Internet: 'Trump' Application Scenario
As we all know, high latency and large bandwidth are the two characteristics of the new network, and many of the application scenarios it brings are also the focus areas of the industrial market. Therefore, in the edge area, including computing-intensive applications, intelligent video acceleration, car networking, The four scenarios including the Internet of Things will become an important field for the future commercial use of the MEC. Among them, the 'Industrial Internet' is undoubtedly the Internet of Things scene that is currently the most concerned by the industry chain.
In the MWC2018, the Industrial Internet has become the focus of many exhibitors. Huawei and Denso jointly demonstrated the 'flexible production' application. Ericsson and China Mobile demonstrated the smart factory demo. Cisco announced the global rollout of NB-IoT-enabled Cisco. Controlled Jasper Control Center, making it the first commercial global NB-IoT control platform. In addition, Alibaba Cloud demonstrated the ET industrial brain, which optimizes machine output and reduces scrap costs by analyzing data collected in industrial production. Solved the core issues of manufacturing.
From the perspective of industrial Internet solutions and application examples displayed by MWC2018 companies, the mobile edge computing MEC is a prerequisite for the implementation of a variety of 5G applications. However, the current industrial Internet platform is still in the primary stage of exploration and requires big data, cloud computing and AI. Such as organic combination of various technologies to promote its further development and improvement.
Three major challenges to be solved
Although MEC has become mainstream, there are still three major issues and challenges for MEC and various MEC-based solutions before large-scale applications.
The first is the mobility issue. The mobility issues involved in the MEC system are mainly divided into two cases. One is the movement of the mobile terminal within the coverage of a specific MEC server. This movement does not involve the handover of the MEC server. In this case, the mobile terminal moves from a source MEC server to another destination MEC server. At present, ETSI and major manufacturers are also paying attention to the issue of MEC mobility. I believe with the deepening of research, this problem will be solved. Step by step solution.
The second is the billing problem. Under the current network architecture, the charging function is the responsibility of the core network. The mobile edge computing platform 'sinks' the network service function to the edge of the network. At the edge of the network, it can be calculated and offloaded. This makes the accounting function It is not easy to implement. At present, the standardization work of ETSI has not involved the realization of the billing function. Therefore, there is no uniform billing standard at present. Different companies provide different billing standards.
Third, security issues. In the mobile edge computing scenario, mobile terminals will face more complex environments, so many security solutions originally used for cloud computing may no longer be applicable to mobile edge computing. Different levels of network entities such as gateways Authentication is also a security issue that needs to be considered. Therefore, the MEC system must solve security problems such as authentication and authentication. Meanwhile, the MEC-based communication process involves many content sharing and computational collaboration. Therefore, the privacy protection of users becomes the future development process of MEC. Challenges to be addressed in the battle.
Despite these problems, we believe that as we move toward 5G, MEC will continue to play a major role in more new scenarios. At the same time, the release of MEC industry standards and the widespread deployment of MEC platforms will also serve major mobile operators. Equipment providers, OTTs and third-party companies bring new operating models. In the future, MECs will become an important part of 5G, which will help push network services and communications services into new phases.