Mobile Edge Computing Software in North America

The Nokia MEC platform is implemented on an IaaS environment, which enables flexible deployment and management of MEC applications. The platform supports LTE networks as well as unlicensed wireless access technologies. The platform is highly scalable and facilitates the reach of MEC applications to specific zones, such as public venues and enterprise campuses, cities, and the entire network. Nokia offers a set of its own and certified third-party MEC applications and real-time services for these applications. The company offers technical and legal frameworks, and developer support through its AppFactory environment to deploy third-party applications onto the MEC platform. The MEC multi-radio connectivity enhances the proficiencies of the platform by providing an overlay approach for multi-operator and multi-access network integration.

Huawei registers its presence in the market with a MEC@CloudEdge solution, based on Huawei’s CloudEdge platform. The MEC@CloudEdge solution offers numerous network functions to meet the requirements for mobility, monitoring, billing, and operations and maintenance (O&M). Through the solution, the company delivers various benefits, such as quick prediction and detection of potential faults, and response within milliseconds through real-time service analysis, to different industries. Some of the other benefits of the solution are enhanced network performance and reliability, flexible deployment, better user experience, and optimum utilization of transmission resources.

Artesyn offers an extensive portfolio of MEC products instrumental in mapping an enterprise’s business requirements for the implementation of IT strategy. The company offers a variety of MEC hardware platforms, including MaxCore Micro, MaxCore Industrial PC (IPC), MaxCore Platform, MaxCore High Availability (HA), and MaxCore Hyperscale. The MaxCore platform offers a versatile and dense architecture to support MEC applications of third-party vendors. All functionalities of the platform are administrated through a management CPU that presents a graphical user interface to the system’s user. Additionally, MaxCore Micro is a highly economical, versatile platform that provisions various applications, such as video streaming and encoding, video surveillance and monitoring, and bump-in-the-wire appliances.

Juniper Networks is one of the prominent players in the MEC market. The company has partnered with Saguna to cater to the MEC market by delivering pre-integrated solutions to Juniper Networks’ highperformance routers and switches, and Saguna Open-RAN MEC platform. The company’s product portfolio consists of ACX Series Universal Access Routers, QFX Series switches, MX Series 3D Universal Edge Routers, vSRX virtual firewall, and Contrail SDN controller. ACX Series Universal Access Routers, QFX Series switches, and MX Series 3D Universal Edge Routers enable the MEC platform services, API layers, and MEC edge applications to run on the Juniper Networks’ hardware in a pre-aggregation/IP aggregation environment.

Brocade offers mobile edge virtualization infrastructure, powered by Brocade vRouter, to deliver MEC applications, network services, and content from the edge of the mobile network. The company offers MEC infrastructure capabilities that enable MNOs to extend the cloud to the mobile edge via hosting VNFs and third-party applications.

The ADLINK MEC platform, the Extreme Outdoor Server (ETOS-1000), is designed for rugged environments and outdoor networking applications. The platform is powered by Intel Xeon processor E5-2400 v2, which enables operators and internet service providers to implement an amalgamation of applications on the mobile edge or radio network environment. The MEC architecture has three key elements - hosting infrastructure, application platform, and applications. ADLINK provides the hosting infrastructure offering through ETOS-1000, which enables operators to save up to 35% on backhaul usage from the RAN to the existing application server.

Advantech offers a versatile and scalable NFVI platform – Packetarium XLc, to easily deploy virtual network functions (VNFs), at the edge of the mobile network. The platform offers the flexibility of bringing network functions out to base station sites and enterprises. It enables the MEC applications to run at the edge of the wireless network, which improves the application response time and reduces the data volume and peak traffic levels. The platform also enables the easy deployment and expansion of new services, with the help of a sufficient processing memory, to meet the subscribers’ demands.

Vasona Networks’ flagship product is the SmartAIR, which is available as an appliance or virtualized solution. The SmartAIR sits between the RAN and the core, at the edge of the network, where it can assess cell-level congestion in real time and take action to preserve customer experiences across videos, social networking, audio streaming, and web browsing.

Vapor IO provides an end-to-end platform (hardware and software) and colocation services for edge computing. The company’s Vapor Chambers are uniquely circular, patented data center rack enclosures that can be placed in harsh environments, such as at the base of cell towers. They snap together like Legos: A 3-person crew can build a micro data center in half a day. The company’s Vapor Software makes it possible to run thousands of edge data centers, remotely. For example, its OpenDCRE software runs as a service in every location, thus providing operators with a common API for analyzing and controlling the infrastructure.