The Swedish content delivery company described its new offering, Varnish Edge Cloud, as a carrier-grade, 5G-ready virtualised CDN. It can deliver 150Gbps from a single node with sub-millisecond response times.
“Varnish Edge Cloud is the next stage in the evolution of Varnish,” said Lars Larsson, CEO, Varnish Software.
“As mobile devices come to dominate how content is accessed, and increasing levels of data processing occur at the network edge, the speed and latency of content delivery is more important than ever. Consumer expectations of 5G have been set high, but to make these a reality, operators are going to have to rethink how they architect their systems, and move storage and caching needs to take place at the outermost edge of the network.”
Warning that traditional content delivery networks will struggle to match 5G for speed and capacity, Varnish Edge Cloud offers a means for network operators to take control of content distribution on their networks and offer such 5G services as high-fidelity video and virtual reality themselves.
This is made possible by the cache capacity of Varnish Edge Cloud nodes, which also scale on demand, whether deployed at the network edge in virtualized PoPs, in aggregate data centres or between 5G base stations.
Described as “highly elastic, cloud-native technology” it handles high density situations, such as those needed in stadiums and city centres, as well as demand spikes from live sports events, season finales and viral content. The solution is already being used by an unnamed “major telecommunications service provider”, that Varnish said is preparing for exactly those eventualities.
Espen Braastad, VP engineering, Varnish Software added: “Varnish Edge Cloud enables our partners to deliver on the promise of 5G networks by matching the speed gains that 5G makes possible, while protecting the core network and origin servers from huge demand.
“This new solution not only helps organisations create new 5G-based services and revenue streams to future-proof their business and enhance their customers’ experience, but as a fully managed service, we can make it even easier to get started with their 5G journey.”
