Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) added an edge orchestration component to its growing 5G focus with the hook being that it will allow telecommunication providers to maintain more control over their network and revenue streams compared with similar offerings from hyperscalers.

The HPE Edge Orchestrator is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform designed to allow telecom operators to maintain more control over their edge deployments and the applications running over those deployments. It’s targeted at both an operator’s own deployment as well as services that operator can offer to enterprise customers. HPE cited an IDC enterprise survey that found 40% of those enterprises surveyed trusted their telecom provider to be the main provider of their edge services.

The platform allows operators to deploy and configure the customer applications as virtual machines (VMs) or containers. Those products can be distributed at edge locations owned by the operator either at existing central offices or on premises at a customer location.

The platform provides a centralized, hardware-neutral orchestrator to provision, configure, and manage edge computing functions. Telecom providers using the service can in turn provide enterprise customers with their own interfaces to manage their workloads, devices, and services, while the telecom provider can maintain management and control of the edge computing portfolio.

The HPE platform supports multi-access edge computing (MEC) that allow those applications to run at the edge using dynamic routing of edge traffic across 4G LTE, 5G, and WiFi connections. HPE said it will be adding other network-as-a-service functions.

“Where we see our strengths is providing a complete package,” said Rolf Eberhardt, head of orchestration, communications and media solutions at HPE, during a press conference. “This is where we really see our differentiator. We are working extremely close with telcos on combining network-as-a-service components with infrastructure-as-a-service, which we are using in the far edge part to provide such end-to-end offerings.”

The Edge Orchestrator builds on HPE’s 5G Core Stack platform that it unveiled earlier this year. It can also be applied to HPE’s Edgeline and ProLiant servers that target enterprise and edge deployments.

Eberhardt also explained that the new platform runs alongside Aruba’s Edge Services Platform (ESP) that was unveiled just last week. That system from the HPE subsidiary includes 35 services that can automatically predict and fix issues at the network edge.

The Edge Orchestrator is set to launch at the end of July and will be offered through HPE’s GreenLake consumption-based, on-demand services portfolio. HPE noted late last year that the GreenLake portfolio was a $4 billion business with more than 700 customers and a 99% renewal rate.

The launch also continues to fulfill HPE CEO Antonio Neri’s 2018 pledge to invest $4 billion in edge products and services by 2022.

The HPE path is similar to what a number of vendors are attempting to navigate.

IBM, for instance, last month unveiled its Telco Network Cloud Manager that taps its Red Hat business to support the deployment and management of artificial intelligence (AI), IoT, and analytic workloads in an edge environment. Similar to HPE’s neutrality stance, IBM Cloud CTO Hillery Hunter said that IBM is making its edge platform “available in a true hybrid cloud, multi-cloud format” based on Red Hat’s efforts.

“Our competitors edge offerings are more limited and focused on being an on-ramp into their public clouds so that would signal that clients would be locked into their solutions rather than having the flexibility to use the cloud environment of their choice,” Hunter said.

Phil Mottram, VP and GM of HPE’s Communications and Media business, explained that the Edge Orchestrator platform is designed to operate outside of any specific public cloud environment, which provides operators with more flexibility in how they approach the market. This approach also allows the telecom provider to maintain more control over their edge plans.

“It’s worth pointing out that each hyperscaler has a different approach with how they deal with the edge but also the relationship that the telco customer either retains or loses as a result of the hyperscalers activity,” Mottram said. “Whereas what we’re doing here is non-threatening to the CSP. We’re enabling CSPs and the telcos to have a direct relationship with the enterprise customer or the company that’s decided to deploy new services. We’re enabling the CSP to grab the new revenue opportunities versus the approach of some of the hyperscalers – not all of them – whereby they’re more driving the opportunity themselves and maybe giving the telcos a share of the revenues. We enable the telco to maintain and build a relationship directly with the enterprise.”

HPE has some history in working with operators on their edge deployments. It struck a deal last year with AT&T on an edge computing for business project that combines AT&T multi-access edge compute (MEC) services and HPE’s converged edge systems.

This angle could be appealing to telecommunication providers that have historically seen the cloud hyperscalers slowly eat into their modern revenue streams.

“Frankly, let’s be honest, there hasn’t been the trust, holistically and globally, across the telco community around the cloud. I think there’s historically been a question of these guys eating their lunch in the past in areas of their business,” Nick McQuire, SVP and head of enterprise research at CCS Insight, recently told SDxCentral.

Nonetheless, there’s widespread acknowledgement among operators that edge computing and core 5G network functions will be tightly interwoven with and fueled by public clouds. “They recognize that they need to scale like the cloud providers, that each can be managing to the cloud in order to achieve the economics that are favorable to them,” McQuire added.