WHAT DO NOKIA’S ADAPTIVE CLOUD NETWORKING AND EDGE NETWORK DO FOR CUSTOMERS?

Finland-based telecommunications equipment equipment, systems and solutions provider Nokia launched its Adaptive Cloud Networking at the Mobile World Congress 2022 in Barcelona, Spain on 1 March 2022.

The cloud-native solution targets unpredictable 5G era demands by supercharging service provider data center fabrics and seamlessly extending network operations to the edge cloud by leveraging Nokia’s Data Center Fabric solution, offering the most open solution with built-in automation capabilities.

Nokia also introduced the Edge Network Controller to automate the lifecycle management of edge cloud locations to transform service provider cloud networks to be consumable, agile and automated.

Enterprise IT News asked Preetha Nadarajah, Nokia Malaysia’s Chief Technology Officer to find out more about what Adaptive Cloud Networking and the Edge Networking Controller does and how they work especially for Nokia’s Malaysian, Sri Lankan and Maldives customers, as well as worldwide.

EITN: Is Nokia providing Adaptive Cloud Networking, Kubernetes orchestration, Edge Cloud control, and so on as a service to end users, or does Nokia provide its business or telco customers with its equipment, technologies, and systems for them to use or provide as a service to their respective clients?

Preetha: At Nokia, we create technology that helps the world act together. As such, we have a responsibility to make digitalisation a reality and we partner up with our customers to address some of the world’s most pressing issues, such as climate change, the digital divide, and stagnant productivity growth.

Our deep understanding of 5G operations, combined with our end-to-end 5G portfolio, provides a clear path forward for connecting the network to the business, monetizing with new business models, implementing closed-loop processes, and establishing a truly outside-in approach to innovation.

We target three customer segments with our hardware, software and services portfolio:

Communications Service Providers

We provide mobile network solutions, IP routing and optical networks, fibre and fixed wireless access solutions, resilient telco core network, and software solutions that support operations and monetisation to telco customers who offer services such as voice, data through fixed, mobile connectivity to consumers, enterprises, government, and other telco customers.

Enterprise Verticals

For enterprise verticals, we concentrate on transportation, energy, manufacturing, logistics, and              the public sector.  We anticipate an increase in private wireless networks in manufacturing,               logistics, and the energy sector. We are also expecting moderate growth in IP routing and optical networks. The digitalisation and automation of operations across verticals, the transition to software-centric operations, and the adoption of Operational Technology edge to increase efficiency are driving demand for critical networks.

Hyperscalers

Nokia provides optical networks (e.g., data centre interconnect (DCI) technology) and IP routing solutions to hyperscalers who provide cloud solutions on a global scale by leveraging massively connected data centres.

EITN: Even before the availability of commercial 5G service in Malaysia, Sri Lanka & Maldives, how many customers does Nokia have for its Adaptive Cloud Networking, Cloud Native, Data Centre Fabric and Edge Network Controller technologies and solutions in these three countries, or in the wider Asia-Pacific region, with networks deployed over fixed infrastructure, 4G LTE, WiFi and fixed radio links?

Preetha: Operations in the Asia Pacific region contributed 12% of Nokia’s global revenues in 2021, making it the third largest region for Nokia’s operations. In addition, about 5% of our employees are based in Asia Pacific. We also have a geographically dispersed manufacturing network, with 29 percent of our production taking place in Asia Pacific, Japan, and India.

In terms of portfolio, the Mobile Networks business group, which provides Radio Access Networks spanning 2G to 5G and microwave radio links for transport networks, as well as the Network Infrastructure business group, which provides fiber, copper, fixed wireless access technologies, IP routing, data center, subsea, and terrestrial optical networks are significant contributors to our regional business.

Our offerings from the Cloud and Network Services business group complement these solutions by enabling our telco operator customers and enterprises to deploy and monetize 5G, cloud-native software, and Software-as-a-Service delivery models.

EITN: Which industries in Malaysia, Sri Lanka & Maldives and in the wider Asia-Pacific have most readily adopted such systems and technologies, and which have been least receptive and why?

Preetha: Most of the world’s economy today is still not digitalised, particularly in operations technology, leaving a lot of untapped potential. We believe the same holds true in our region. With our technological leadership and trusted partnerships, we continue to make a difference here.

Southeast Asia’s Industry 4.0 transformation is still in a nascent stage, with uneven degrees of digital readiness. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) tend to be at Industry 1.0 – 2.0 state of technology use, where manual and basic mechanization processes are still often used. On the other hand, larger companies are typically in Industry 3.0 stage and are transitioning towards Industry 4.0. Cost considerations, capital requirements, a lack of digital knowledge, and a lack of information on support options are common barriers to adopting digital technologies, particularly for SMEs. However, there is growing interest in the region including Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives.

EITN: Can Nokia’s Edge Network Controller introduced with Adaptive Cloud Networking at the Mobile World Congress 2022 work with Nokia’s MX Industrial Edge Server, or are they intended for different specialisations?

Preetha: The Nokia Edge Network Controller offers a cloud-native network automation function that is tailored to the specific requirements of edge clouds. It enables network engineering, architecture, and operations teams to collaborate using a common NetOps approach, and it provides them with a simple and flexible method of automating IP network design and configuration. The Nokia MX Industrial Edge, on the other hand, is a future-ready on-premises edge solution that can accelerate the operational technology’s (OT) digital transformation. It combines the agility and simplicity of an edge-as-a-service model with a high-performance, resilient, and secure edge architecture tailored to the mission-critical requirements of asset-intensive industrial environments.

Each solution is specialised in a different way. They work together to meet the needs of mission-critical network edge use-cases, such as combining carrier-grade resilience, reliability, and security with webscale flexibility and elasticity.

EITN: What kind of efficiency, productivity, human resource, and cost savings can Nokia’s Adaptive Cloud Networking and Edge Network Controller provide different industry sectors in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives, particularly industries that stubbornly rely on cheap, mostly migrant labour that is abundant in these three countries and most ASEAN countries besides Singapore?

We’ve leveraged our technologies to digitalize our own pre-production facility in Finland, demonstrating our ability to digitally transform and modernise the manufacturing facilities of our customers for Industry 4.0. McKinsey and the World Economic Forum named our 5G “future factory” in Oulu, Finland, as an Advanced 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) Lighthouse, recognising our leadership and proven success in adopting and implementing 4IR technologies at scale.

 The top use-cases implemented here are:

1. Virtualization of new product introduction (NPI)
2. Introduction of flexible robots to ensure high productivity and agility for continuous new ramp-ups
3. Introduction of private wireless network to speed up the new product introductions line re-layout
4. Introduction of cloud-based digital data control enabling real-time process management
5. Introduction of no-touch internal logistics automation via connected mobile robots.

 Some of the key impacts of the technology adoption have been:

1. 50% reduction in prototype lead-time and 70% reduction in transfer time to EMS
2. 60% reduction in lead-time and WIP (work-in-progress) buffer reduction
3. 40% increase in mobile robots’ efficiency and reliability
4. 50% reduction of process defects

This will increase productivity by 30% and now bring products to the market 50% faster than before, saving millions of euros in annual costs. Nokia’s private wireless networks for secure and reliable connectivity for all assets inside and outside the factory, IoT analytics running on the Edge cloud, and a real-time digital twin of operations data are the technologies used here.

In addition, Malaysian corporations are currently facing a migrant labour shortage as labour practices have come under increased scrutiny and regulatory obstacles in recent years. Increasing the use of technology for digitalization and automation as part of the operational technology is one of the steps that businesses and the government can take to mitigate the impact of the labour shortage on Malaysia’s economy.

EITN: Does Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Maldives have sufficient suitably skilled personnel to deploy, design, operate and manage Nokia’s Adaptive Cloud Networking, Edge Network Controller, the micro-applications, containerisation, their deployment on AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google and so forth Infrastructure as a Service platforms and so forth?

Preetha: At Nokia, we create technology that helps the world act together and our experienced and skilled personnel are at the heart of how we achieve that and deliver our commitments.

The market for skilled employees in our industry is extremely competitive. We are focusing on building a human-centric, innovative, and flexible organisation to help us adapt to changing labour market dynamics. To develop the skills we will need in the future, we must continue to focus on motivation, inclusivity, creativity, and continuous learning.

Nokia has earned its reputation as a people-centric organisation, widely recognised as one of the most ethical companies in the world, by constantly evolving, listening to our people, and responding quickly to changing dynamics. Focusing on growth, skills and development will help us to keep building that good reputation while maintaining our outstanding technology leadership.

Our people strategy reinforces our guiding principles in the deployment, design, operation, and management of Nokia’s Adaptive Cloud Networking, Edge Network Controller, micro-applications, containerization, and deployment on AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google, and other cloud platforms. They were developed in collaboration with our employees and customers, and they reflect what we all want to experience when we work with and for Nokia: openness, fearlessness, and empowerment.

EITN: As the availability of 5G service expands across Malaysia, in what ways, and especially which applications will Nokia’s Adaptive Cloud Networking and Edge Network Controller more greatly enable compared to existing wide area fixed and wireless network infrastructure?

Preetha: We anticipate growth in private wireless networks in manufacturing and logistics as well as energy sector. Some of the basic use-cases we anticipate are:

• Asset-tracking of production materials, personnel, and final finished product
• Condition-based monitoring of connected equipment to improve maintenance schedules and prevent unplanned downtime
• Mobile robots (e.g. autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs) and autonomous mobile robots (AMRs))
• Augmented reality to facilitate the flow of information and idea exchange across teams

EITN: Since Digital Nasional Berhad’s open-access, single wholesale 5G network will involve partner cellular service operators to provide retail 5G service to end users, will these retail 5G providers have to provide 5G sliced private networks for at least some of these users of Nokia’s Adaptive Cloud Networking and Edge Network Controller systems and solutions, and how well will Nokia’s Adaptive Cloud Networking and Edge Network Controller work over the public 5G network where the users does not want to pay for private 5G slicing?

Preetha: The three essential use-case classes with a 5G system are enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) with over 10 Gbps peak download speeds, massive Machine Type Communication (mMTC) with over 1M devices connected per square km and ultra-reliable low latency communications (uRLLC) with low latencies below 1 millisecond and 99.99% reliability.

The early 5G adoption is with eMBB. Depending on the specifics of use case required by the user, a slice may or may not be required. As of 4 August 2022, we have 77 live 5G operator networks and 230 commercial 5G deals. We also have an early market leadership position in private wireless, with 485 private wireless customers globally as of Q2 2022, of which more than 80 include 5G. With the breadth and depth of these experiences, we are well equipped and prepared to support both Digital Nasional Berhad and the Malaysian telcos in becoming successful 5G single wholesaler and 5G retailers respectively.