Extreme Fabric: Enabling Optimized, Automated 5G Networks

According to Ericsson, mobile network traffic could hit 473EB (Exabyte) monthly by 2030. As the demand for seamless, high-speed connectivity grows, communication service providers (CSPs) are under high pressure to find ways to efficiently manage all this data and deliver reliable, high-quality 5G connections to end users.

To optimize network traffic, many CSPs are now deploying scalable, high-performance network fabric in their data centers to support cloud-native 5G applications. Such applications will run on bare-metal servers, utilizing cloud native technologies like K8s (Kubernetes) and use DevOps techniques and principles, where automation and orchestration of such fabrics and workloads are an integral part of the solution.

Importance for 5G users

Fabric is significant for 5G CSPs due to the lower total cost of ownership (TCO) model and faster deployment and delivery of new services. Additionally, a simplified cloud-native stack offers cost savings and reduced overhead compared to traditional virtual machine deployments – which is why fabric has been implemented for hundreds of millions of 5G subscribers globally.

Extreme Fabric and Ericsson Cloud Native Infrastructure Solution

Extreme Networks’ IP Fabric and 8000 Series switches and routers are used in hundreds of data centers around the world. Because Extreme Fabric integrates seamlessly with Ericsson Cloud Native Infrastructure Solution (CNIS), many CSPs are now using these combined solutions to optimize 5G workloads and deliver improved performance and speeds to end-users. The integrated solutions deliver:

• Improved network resilience, reliability, and uptime.
• Automated network and tenant tasks, optimizing data delivery and removing the burden of complex manual configurations.
• Real-time adjustments to network and tenant resources, enabling optimal network performance.

Some of the biggest challenges in today’s data centers, both for CSPs and enterprises, are constantly changing traffic patterns and traffic volumes caused by new demands like the increased need to run AI workloads. With Extreme Fabric and Ericsson CNIS, CSPs now have a fabric architecture that can provide predictable performance and scaling characteristics and more easily support high demands on the network.

The demand for seamless connectivity everywhere will only continue to rise, and a combination of 5G and Wi-Fi will be required to reach that goal. With industry leaders like Ericsson and Extreme working together, CSPs can deliver high-quality 5G services without the burden of complex manual configurations, removing complexity and preparing them to meet the needs of our evolving digital world.

Learn more about Extreme Fabric.