The journey of an IT professional, to the clouds and back

A soliloquy of sorts: looking back at the massive evolution experienced in computing over the half-century (plus!)

Since the 1960s, networks have been steadily driving towards cloud computing. But, fast forward to 2020 and 5G mobile networks will get the ball rolling further and faster to efficiently distribute tasks, to deliver new applications, and to change the way many industries and business processes work.

Those of us who grew up during the Cold War years have been through a number of digital work and computing transformations. The 1960s and 1970s kicked off with centralized computing, clunky VT100 dumb client terminals, and the sharing of a common compute resource (an efficient model for the time).

In the 1980s, we shifted towards smaller, cheaper desktops and compute in the form of various Unix workstations and PCs networked together by local area networks (LANs) connected to mainframe computers. Suddenly you could do everything (well almost!) on your desktop without having to always reach back to the mainframe to schedule a task. This spurred innovation and many new desktop applications.

This shift to decentralized storage and compute had a number of advantages but also increased operations cost in many areas. Backups now had to be done for every PC with local storage, and IT technicians were hired to maintain the distributed hardware and LAN. Files and resources could be shared over blazingly fast 10Mbps networks, but there was still a lot of desktop hardware generating heat and noise. IT budgets steadily increased.

Mid-1990s things started to shift back towards the 1970s approach of more centralized computing again leveraging diskless Unix workstations and small “thin client” PCs booting off the network. These “computers” basically consisted of just a screen, a keyboard and a small, networked silent box to tie it all together. We were almost back at VT100 days, except now with a mouse, a “high”-resolution color screen, and sound and video. Computing was again done in a local IT server room. This shift at least promised to save a lot of IT budget, and made system administration simpler and client machines easier to replace.

The workplace computing transformation continues

What enabled the shift back to more server-based computing was again ‘the network’ in the form of a fast switched 100MB LAN using Ethernet and IP. Latency when accessing a shared file and the time it took to retrieve a dataset from the database were significantly reduced. Although not every workplace adopted the diskless workstation concept, the advent of faster networking enabled new applications and services to be introduced that changed the way most of us did our day-to-day work.

In parallel with workplace computing transformation, the mobile networks of the 2000s began to support data transfer mechanisms. From WAP, i-mode (who remembers that one?), and GPRS to today’s IP-based LTE, the bitrates have rapidly increased and enabled smarter mobile devices. Handhelds grew from being just a phone to smart computing devices with powerful new mobile data capabilities to enable functions traditionally only possible at the desk.

Moving into the 2010s, the Internet has matured and can provide speeds that were previously only available in LANs. We’re working through the current major shift of cloud computing. Desktops have now been mostly replaced by laptops with decent local computing speed. In order to save IT budget, most companies are again looking to centralize server compute to save money and streamline operations. Also this time around, it’s the network that’s paving the way for a new model of computing, a network that in this case is global, a network of networks, and to a large extent, a living organism of its own.

On to edge compute, standalone 5G mobile networks, and the next phase of computing

Now we’re seeing the rollouts of the next transformational step in computing: 5G mobile networks. Delivering speeds and data density vastly higher than before, the new standalone 5G mobile network holds promise to transform how computing is done in our daily work and personal lives.

Verizon summarizes the advantages of 5G mobile networks as the “8 currencies”, in essence new concepts that enable edge cloud, private slicing of network resources to dedicated applications or customers, and massive scale of connected devices. The advent of 5G is different from previous mobile network technology leaps of speed and throughput. One of the most interesting and transformational concepts of 5G is the introduction of third-party edge computing. Imagine having high-speed computing available just a few milliseconds away from mobile users. Even if today’s smartphones have ample CPU, there are just things too heavy for them to do locally. One example is real-time imagery analysis for augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR), another is high-definition (HD) real-time voice translation, but this is just the beginning.

As I outlined earlier, the key role of networks is in driving computing evolution; it’s the mobile network that will set the ball rolling and enable new ways to more efficiently distribute tasks, deliver new applications and will change the way many industries and business processes work.

As with every technology shift in the past, new networks, connections, features and applications of course call for new and innovative methods of service assurance. Because who wants to be flying blind going at speeds of 10Gbps or 100Gbps?

As part of the Accedian product management team, I’m excited to be on this journey together with our skilled customers to reach the common goal of delivering the best possible service quality, everywhere, all the time.

Check back regularly for updates on how our Skylight platform and new microservices-based sensor agents are continuously evolving through DevOps engagements with key global operators and their 5G and edge strategies.

In the meantime, read this solution brief to see how network performance and service assurance can empower 5G operators with insight into both physical network and virtual service operations.