Smarter wireless networks
Add intelligence to the mobile network edge
Contents
2 Introduction
3 Intelligent base stations
5 Business models for mobile operators 6 The smarter city in motion: a walk-through 8 Next steps
Executive summary
The continuing growth of mobile data traffic, smart phone pen etration and the realization of the “Internet of things” have placed requirements upon mobile network infrastructure that the infrastructure was not originally designed to accommodate.
Adding more intelligence at the edge of mobile networks allow operators to optimize their infrastructure to deal with unprece- dented amounts of traffic, to rapidly deliver innovative features to accelerate data services and to enable a completely unique mobile broadband experience that can be directly translated into value.
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Nokia Siemens Networks has launched Liquid Applications, which forms part of its Liquid Net framework. The base station component is the Radio Applications Cloud Server. This server is a computing platform that is fully integrated with the Flexi Multiradio Base Station. Nokia Siemens Networks’ Radio
Applications Cloud Server provides the world’s first mobile-edge server platform within a macro base station, coupled with access to near-real time network data that has never been exploited.
This platform embeds the IBM® WebSphere® Application Service Platform for Networks, a component which provides a specialized virtualization environment for mobile base stations.
Experience the first mobile edge network-virtualization environ- ment. See how operators can potentially save money because they can serve the same population with less infrastructure. And because services are not required to go through the Internet, it is possible to deliver custom applications with faster response times and lower service latency. See how new disruptive services for consumers and enterprises can be deployed at a key location in the network, giving unique opportunities to monetize the mobile broadband. This white paper describes the many ways that you can leverage the capabilities of this collaboration between Nokia Siemens Networks and IBM.
Introduction
The continuing growth of mobile traffic is well documented.
Today, driven mainly by consumer smart phones, this growth in mobile traffic is set to increase dramatically as enterprises extend their business processes to smart mobile devices and as machine- to-machine solutions mature throughout vertical industries.
Wireless sensors are key enablers to many mission-critical scenarios, from smarter traffic to video surveillance. Expect wireless sensors to grow in their numbers exponentially over the next 10 years.
The cellular network is the ubiquitous platform for integrating these devices with vertical back office solutions. This puts mobile operators at the heart of this explosive growth.
IBM and Nokia Siemens Networks are collaborating to enable Nokia Siemens Networks to deliver the first mobile edge com- puting platform, embedding IBM cloud and middleware tech- nology within Nokia Siemens Networks’ base station equipment.
This collaboration makes it possible for mobile operators to complement mobile communication services with intelligent hosting of vertical applications at the edge of the network and to adopt a variety of new high-value business models.
Deploying intelligence at the network edge enhances latency- critical applications, optimizes operator network traffic and provides a distributed computing environment that can analyze massive amounts of information and can accomplish this far quicker than is possible in a traditional data center environment.
Intelligent base stations
Nokia Siemens Networks has launched Liquid Applications, which forms part of its Liquid Net framework. The base station component, the Radio Applications Cloud Server (RACS), is a computing platform fully integrated with the Flexi Multiradio Base Station. Nokia Siemens Networks’ Radio Applications Cloud Server provides the world’s first mobile edge server platform within a macro base station, coupled with access to near-real time network data that has not been exploited to date.
Big data
“Internet of things”
sensors
Social and Internet data sources
Mobile internet
Private cloud
Enterprise
“Demilitarized zone”
Developer and customer communities Private cloud
Private cloud
Private cloud API Service
API Service
API Service
API
API DB DB DB
API API Service
Service
API
Application
Application Application Application Application Virtual
machine Virtual
machine Virtual
machine Virtual machine
Computing Storage Offload Radio data
IBM WebSphere® Application Service Platform for Networks
IBM SmartCloud™ management
Nokia Siemens Networks RACS
The IBM WebSphere Application Service Platform for Networks platform uses IBM WebSphere middleware and IBM cloud management technologies. WebSphere Application Service Platform for Networks provides a standards-based run- time and management platform for Nokia Siemens Networks’
RACS solution. WebSphere Application Service Platform for Networks is designed to allow mobile operators to deploy, run and integrate applications in a highly distributed virtualized environment. Applications and services run in cloud-like con- tainers, isolated from one another but able to communicate securely with each other and with the platform.
The combined offerings make it possible for IT-oriented appli- cations to be deployed at a base station and integrated directly to radio information through a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) from Nokia Siemens Networks. Operators can now open the network edge to third-party software partners to
rapidly bundle innovative network features, accelerate web-based services and enable a completely unique mobile broadband expe- rience that can be directly translated into value.
User Engineering
Accelerate “over the top” applications and enterprise applications Improve quality of experience Provide innovative new features
Reduce network costs
Significantly improve network lifecycle Accelerate “over the top” applications and enterprise applications
Software functions are decoupled from the hardware platform and integrated to network Software applications are deployed, isolated and integrated in a security-rich manner Applications are monitored and configured from a single environment
Platform capabilities
Various potential benefits for operators and consumers can be broken into the following categories:
Improve quality of experience
Web-based services or enterprise applications can be signifi- cantly accelerated when they are deployed closer to the service consumer. For example, the delivery of video can be greatly accelerated and near-real time network data can be effectively used for contextualizing web-based applications.
Optimize network traffic
Caching content or delivering services directly from the edge of the network protects backhaul and core network elements, reducing peak traffic loads.
Deliver low latency
Pushing processing and storage to the edge of the mobile net- work allows large complex problems to be distributed into many smaller and more manageable pieces. These pieces are physically located at the source of the information that requires attention.
Create an innovative software system
The solution disrupts the connected system, since operators, ser- vice providers and other entities can now play complementary and profitable roles within their respective business models as they monetize the mobile broadband experience.
Business models for mobile operators
Extending mobile networks to run applications and communica- tions services opens up a number of adjacent business opportuni- ties for mobile operators. High-value vertical solutions can be bundled with location-based hosting and with traditional mobile connectivity into new long-term annuity businesses.
This new vertical mobile application architecture opens up a number of adjacent mobile infrastructure opportunities also. In addition to communications, vertical applications require com- puting and storage capabilities at specific locations, directly in the mobile network. These capabilities provide operators with the opportunity to increase their offering scope and to strengthen customer retention.
IBM Smarter Cities® applications
Intelligent
Transportation Intelligent
Water Meter Data
Management
Intelligent Operations
Center
Wireless
M2M Service Data
Warehousing Device Management
Traditional operator services
Operator brings a bundled offer to the target market segment
Target
markets Municipalities Utilities
EXAMPLE
OFFERING
Typical enterprise, machine-to-machine (M2M) or smarter solutions can be broken into a number of key sub-components that are commonly sourced from a variety of third parties.
Communications and hosting are traditional operator offerings;
software and middleware can be common building blocks throughout vertical solutions and finally, vertical-specific hard- ware and system integration of the overall solution.
The opportunity is to expand current offerings in both scope and volume. Traditional capabilities such as communications and hosting can be extended in scope as the demand increases for location based hosting. New capabilities can be layered on top to provide a stack for the most-common vertical solutions.
Cities Enterprises
Mobile network edge scope
Cellular communications Current scope
$
$
Operator core business
Hosting Software Middleware Hardware System
integration
Adjacencies Partners
IBM Smarter
cities® Analytics Smart
surveillance Machine-to-machine (M2M)
Operator can offer a higher-value, network-based stack
“Internet of things” sensors API Private cloudService
APP
APP DB DB DB
Service
Service
APP APP
The smarter city in motion:
a walk-through
To demonstrate this new architecture in action, consider a
“smarter city” scenario. In this case, the mobile network captures information about the manner in which people are moving through a city in near-real time. The mobile network can do
more than simply identify movement; the network can reveal the type of transport that each person is using, for example walking, cycling, riding in buses or riding in cars. This near-real time view of city usage is then used to configure the smarter city’s transport network to ensure optimum performance.
In this scenario, the IBM InfoSphere® Streams analytics platform is deployed at the base station. The platform interro- gates Nokia Siemens Networks radio APIs and computes a set of vectors that represent speed and direction for each active cell phone that is connected. Once this information is processed into a set of crowd dynamics, the information is sent back to a core function that integrates directly with the smarter city’s transpor- tation system.
The traditional approach has involved the processing of centrally located historical information; this approach provides a view of how people have been using the city in the past—but the tradi- tional approach cannot reveal what is currently happening.
When you can distribute analytics to the edge, you can reduce the volume of information that must be analyzed by a single processing unit. The result: reduced lag and enablement of a thorough, wide-ranging system that operates in near-real time.
There are a number of ways in which a mobile operator could monetize this solution; for example:
1. The intelligent transport solution described in the example could be offered as a complete service to a city, or the solution could be offered as a partnership with a variety of vertical- component providers.
2. Lease to the city the basic infrastructure to run the solution;
this lease can be made directly with the city, or can be made through another solution provider that primes the solution.
The opportunities could range from virtual machine hosting to solution-aware middleware
3. Sell directly to your subscriber base the smart phone
applications that provide near-real time information related to the City
4. Lease out the Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that make it possible for third-party application providers to use the city’s near-real time data.
Traffic Lights Public Transport Road Signs Police
City rearranges transport system in near-real time
Operator provides near-real
time crowd movement City provides near-real time transit information City Transportation
Control System
The Smarter City Benefit to the city
• Near-real time, system-wide visibility of commuters who are using the city transit network
• Near-real time insights into the performance of transit operations
• Proactive management of public transport and better-informed commuters
Near-real time analytics
Near-real time movement
Integrate to City Revenue opportunities for operators Near-real time
city information Geo-spatial analytics
Radio analytics Nokia Siemens Networks
Liquid App Server
City movement sensors
Control Aggregate Operator cloud
Intelligent Transport Solution
City
App
API
Sell to the city a thorough, wide-ranging solution for near-real time transport management
Use a smart phone application to overlay on a map the near- real time city performance
Sell to third parties near-real time city movement and city information
Processing location at the network edge enables real time analysis and control throughout the system
terms, from IBM initially to providers of appropriate value- added solutions) or the Radio Applications Cloud Server from Nokia Siemens Networks, please contact your IBM or Nokia Siemens Networks sales representative.
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Nokia Siemens Networks Radio Applications Cloud Server is not an IBM product or offering. Radio Applications Cloud Server is sold or licensed, as the case may be, to users under Nokia Siemens Network’s terms and conditions, which are provided with the product or offering. Availability, and any and all warranties, services and support for Radio Applications Cloud Server is the direct responsibility of, and is provided directly to users by, Nokia Siemens Networks.
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