Edge data centres, as the name suggests, are located at the edge of a network. They are relatively smaller facilities placed close to the populations they serve. They deliver cached content and cloud com­puting resources to end-users. Edge data centres provide end-users with faster, more stable and more responsive networks by eliminating the need to move data from distant data centres in order to process it, enabling faster performance and lower latency. Owing to these advantages, these data centres are gaining traction across the globe. For 5G, a decentralised cell network composed of edge data centres can provide low latency in use cases involving high device density. The low latency associated with edge data centres will be a game chan­ger in the 5G era. Further, edge computing will enable 5G to deliver on its latency and bandwidth promises.

Market forecast

According to market research firm In­ternational Data Corporation (IDC), the global datasphere will grow from 33 zetta­bytes (ZB) in 2018 to 175 ZB by 2025. Meanwhile, India’s data centre market is poised to grow almost three times in terms of MW by 2025. IDC also predicts that by 2025 about 49 per cent of the world’s stored data will reside in public cloud environments, and there will be about 4,909 data interactions per connected person per day. Moreover, over 150 billion devices are expected to be connected across the globe by 2025, most of which will be creating data in real time.

Growth drivers

Recognising edge data centres as the biggest potential disruptor in the data centre industry, a number of companies have star­ted eyeing opportunities in this do­ma­in. Moreover, with 5G services being rolled out across the country, a decentra­lised small cell network of edge data centres will be crucial for providing low-cost and low-latency support for high-device-density 5G use cases. Moreover, the rapid proliferation of internet of things (IoT) devices is driving the demand for edge data centres. Low latency edge processing is key to managing the increasing volume of data, as more and more IoT sensors and devices are being installed at home and in industrial set-ups.

Additionally, service providers are increasingly moving towards leveraging the architectures and technologies of software-defined network and network function virtualisation to become more agile. This enables them to bring new services online faster, and save on both capex and opex by improving efficiency. Deployment of such technologies, in turn, adds to the demand for edge data centres. Further, the convergence of wireline and wireless networks, and the need for higher bandwidth with lower latency, are driving cloud computing environments to the edges of the networks. Meanwhile, the decentralised aspect of edge data centres also helps in reducing streaming latency and providing the performance that consumers and business users demand.

RailTel’s initiatives

Set up in 2000, RailTel Corporation, the telecom arm of Indian Railways, manages all of its telecom assets, including optical fibre. It has two Tier III data centres in Gurugram and Secunderabad. RailTel has exclusive right of way (RoW) along the railway routes and on railway land. The company has laid 61,000 route km of optical fibre cable, with points of presence at over 6,100 railway stations. RailTel’s public Wi-Fi network, spread across these 6,100 railway stations, is one of the largest integrated Wi-Fi networks in the world. This has also paved the way for setting up common service centre kiosks at railway stations across India. RailTel is focusing on bringing Rail­Wire Wi-Fi to over 100,000 villages within a 5 km distance of rural railway stations. So far, it has reached over 12,000 such villages, where lack of infrastructure demotivates other players from providing high speed internet.

Going forward, RailTel aims to build 102 edge data centres on existing railway telecom complexes, buildings and land. Each of these edge data centres is expected to have 20 racks. The proposed centres will be centrally managed via RailCloud from the existing main data centres at Gurugram and Secunderabad. Activities that are centrally managed through these edge data centres include network and telecom, firewalls, security information event management, endpoint security solutions, domain name system and dynamic host configuration protocol, unified threat management, and email servers.

The process of establishing these edge data centres has been set in motion th­rou­gh the invitation of expressions of interest from industry partners. Under the proposed plan, the initial capacity of each en­visioned edge data centre will be 5 kW to 10 kW. However, edge data centres with variable rack and power densities might be explored as per the requirement and availability of space, power and other factors at individual locations.

Based on a presentation by Alok Agnihotri, Additional General Manager (Business Development), RailTel