IBM joined a growing list of tech giants targeting edge computing and 5G deployments, tapping into its multicloud expertise and subsidiary Red Hat for services to support the deployment and management of artificial intelligence (AI), IoT, and analytic workloads in an edge environment.

The most specific to edge and 5G deployments is the IBM Telco Network Cloud Manager. It runs on RedHat’s Kubernetes-focused OpenShift platform and provides automation capabilities to orchestrate virtual network functions (VNFs), which typically run on virtual machines (VMs), and container network functions (CNFs), which typically run in containerized environments.

The new IBM platform taps the Kubernetes core of OpenShift to allow operators to manage their applications across cloud environments. It also allows operators to manage workloads on Red Hat’s OpenShift and OpenStack Platform.

This VNF/CNF support is becoming increasingly important for operators that want to mimic the network architecture of hyperscale-cloud providers. Red Hat and Intel earlier this year released VNF/CNF testbed targeted at these efforts.

“Despite how much discussion and how much excitement had happened around VNF architecture, the truth and reality at least from our experience was it feels to me that this is the first time all these vendors are doing this at scale,” Rakuten Mobile CTO Tariq Amin recently told SDxCentral.

The IBM platform also includes its Edge Application Manager, which is an autonomous management service that supports the deployment of AI, analytics, and IoT enterprise workloads at scale. It uses the IBM-developed Open Horizon open source project to manage up to 10,000 edge nodes simultaneously by a single administrator.

Open Horizon allows for the autonomous management of applications that are deployed to edge computing nodes. It late last month joined the Linux Foundation’s LF Edge venture.

IBM also launched a handful of applications and services to work in the new environment. These include an analytics service, one targeted at production optimization, and one for a connected manufacturing environment.

In addition, IBM launched an ecosystem component that will allow other integrate service vendors to work through the Edge and IBM Telco Network Cloud platforms. Initial members include Cisco, Dell, Juniper Networks, Intel, and Nvidia.

IBM Cloud CTO Hillery Hunter explained during a media event for this week’s IBM Think Digital event that IBM’s push targets the challenges operators are finding in trying to build out the edge component of 5G networks. She said this includes the need for a robust edge computing platform has to be able to scale quickly to deal with different locations and capabilities at the edge; that it needs to be able to deal with unreliable internet connectivity; and that can handle all data content generated and analyzed at an edge location securely.

IBM’s efforts join a handful of similar platforms launched by its rivals.

Cloud hyperscalers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP), have all in recent months launched platforms targeted at the growing edge and 5G market. AWS’ is based on its Wavelengths product, Microsoft on its Azure Edge Zones, and GCP on its Mobile Edge Cloud platform.

“This announcement fits into a wider trend by software and cloud players to add capabilities so they can increasingly play as infrastructure vendors to the [communication service providers], as well as in some cases be service providers themselves,” noted Sylvain Fabre, senior research director at Gartner, in an email to SDxCentral on the IBM launch.

Fabre also cited a number of recent deals in that direction, including VMware’s purchase of Uhana that added tools for optimizing the radio network; Microsoft’s recent purchase of virtual packet core provider Affirmed Networks; and Google Cloud working with NetCracker on business support systems (BSS) for operators.

Hunter said that unlike other cloud providers, IBM is making its edge platform “available in a true hybrid cloud, multicloud format” based on Red Hat’s efforts. She also said this allows customers to have consistency across their cloud environments.

“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.

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.

Outside of the cloud hyperscalers, a number of IBM’s more traditional vendor competitors have also moved aggressively into the edge and 5G space.

VMware, for instance, earlier this year launched its Telco Cloud Automation platform that was previously known as Project Maestro. The software platform is designed as an orchestration and automation layer underpinning current 4G LTE and 5G networks and to help service providers accelerate their time to market and onboarding of VNFs, CNFs, and network services. Service providers can use the platform to build and automate network services on top of VMware’s telco NFV platform, and it also enables interoperability across operators’ environments including core and edge as well as public and private clouds.

Fabre added that those moves alongside IBM's latest push are set to pressure more traditional telecommunication vendors and open up new options for operators.

“What we are witnessing is a clear set of moves that will create distinct competition to the traditional vendors such as Nokia, Ericsson, and Huawei, but over time will also become more of a threat for operators when it comes to providing private mobile networks as the operators are no longer seen as the only, or even most attractive supplier for dedicated networks for enterprises,” Fabre wrote.