Verizon Business is extending its partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to deliver 5G mobile edge computing to private business sites in the US. Verizon’s private 5G networks and Private Edge platform will be integrated with AWS Outposts, a fully managed service that offers AWS infrastructure and services to business data centres, co-location spaces or on-premises facilities. Corning will be one of the first customers to leverage the hybrid platform.
MEC running on private networks is designed to create a secure, dedicated computing platform within specific areas such as factories, warehouses, and large business campuses. The platform supports unified connectivity, compute and storage, without the need for the customer to own extensive networking and IT infrastructure.
The fully managed private MEC service will support a wide range of industrial manufacturing applications, providing secure, high-bandwidth, low-latency connection to AWS services, APIs, and tools running on AWS Outposts. Additionally, two smaller AWS Outposts — 1U and 2U form factors — will give customers options to deploy AWS on-premises in space-constrained locations.
The Verizon and AWS collaboration began with the launch of Verizon 5G Edge with AWS Wavelength. AWS Wavelength extends AWS compute and storage services to the edge of Verizon’s public mobile network and provides seamless access to cloud services running in an AWS region. This minimizes the latency and network hops required to connect from a 5G device to an application hosted on AWS. Since August 2020, the companies have announced the general availability of 5G mobile edge computing via Wavelength Zones in 10 cities across the US.
Corning is already exploring the benefits of 5G and private MEC at its fibre manufacturing site in Hickory, North Carolina. Corning and Verizon are working with Gestalt Robotics to run edge services on AWS Outposts for autonomous navigation and advanced environmental sensing. Gestalt Robotics makes use of computer vision and machine learning models to process sensor data received from autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), then send commands to the AMRs over the 5G private network. The service can reduce the need for computing hardware and battery capacity on the AMRs and enable near real-time interaction and a closed-loop control of the vehicles, delivering high-reliability production services within the factory, Verizon said.
