SOLUTION OVERVIEW
April 2024
Software-Defined Edge
Orchestrating connectivity and workloads
across enterprise and telecommunications
The software-defined edge is a distributed digital infrastructure for
connecting, securing, and running workloads across dispersed
locations, close to endpoints that produce or consume data. The edge
looks different across use cases, from offices and work-from-anywhere
locations to cell sites, retail stores, factory floors, medical centers, wind
turbines, or a vehicle on the move. VMware by Broadcom's portfolio of
software-defined edge solutions addresses business needs across
enterprises and communications service providers (CSPs).
The need for the software-defined edge
Gartner1 estimates that by 2025, more than half of enterprise-managed data will
be created and processed outside the data center or cloud—in other words, at
the edge. As the edge grows rapidly, enterprises and CSPs are encountering
both opportunities and obstacles:
• Organizations want to use AI and ML to make better data-driven decisions
and create new services that delight customers and provide opportunities for
new revenue. Solutions such as real-time AI analysis and decision-making,
automation, and extended reality require more advanced intelligence and
resources at the edge. These workloads cannot afford the cost and latency
burden of being routed through a data center or to a cloud. They need fast
local connectivity and immense processing power for real-time results.
• Enterprises are contending with edge sprawl, seeking more efficient ways to
manage hundreds and thousands of operational technology (OT) devices and
software instances. They want to take advantage of edge technology, not
spend time managing it.
• Edge locations are often defined and constrained by OT hardware.
Decoupling hardware from software will provide opportunities for scale,
flexibility, agility, programmability, and cost savings.
• CSPs are looking for new revenue opportunities as they develop edge
services for enterprise customers. To deliver more value, CSPs have begun
1 Gartner, Hyperscalers Stretching to the Digital Edge, 24 July 2023
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Software-Defined Edge
disaggregating and modernizing their radio access network (RAN)
infrastructure—the edge sites of their networks. The next step is to extend the
programmable telco network to their customers’ edge locations.
Layers of the software-defined edge
Figure 1: Three layers of the software-defined edge
The software-defined edge is the intersection of workloads, an intelligent
overlay, and a network.
• Edge workloads—both hardware and software — that enterprises use to
accomplish business goals at edge locations
• An intelligent and programmable overlay that extends across the edge,
clouds, IaaS, and SaaS
• A network—fixed wireless, fiber, broadband, satellite, and more—delivered by
CSPs to connect the layers
Intelligent connectivity across the layers
For optimal performance, edge workloads need to be recognized and
prioritized across different network types. This is where the SD-WAN layer, the
intelligent overlay, comes into play. SD-WAN identifies 4,000+ applications to
identify and prioritize IT and OT workloads. The intelligent overlay can
aggregate multiple network sources, detect network conditions, and choose the
best path to maximize bandwidth and reduce factors such as latency and jitter.
This ensures business-critical applications have access to the best available
network resources before sending application traffic to the CSP network.
The intelligent overlay can program the CSP network to reserve application
network requirements such as high bandwidth and low latency.
Programmability allows the software-defined edge to provide enterprise-grade
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Software-Defined Edge
performance, security, visibility, and control of the WAN for users and devices
accessing applications over both the public Internet and private networks.
CSPs provide the networks that make edge connectivity possible. Many
enterprises already work with a CSP to provide the physical links to their
distributed edge locations. By adding new compute and orchestration tools to
these links, CSPs can create a comprehensive SDE offering to deliver even
more advanced digital capabilities wherever customers need them.
To secure edge workloads and protect users and infrastructure from threats,
SD-WAN integrates with security service edge (SSE) services to form secure
access service edge (SASE). When SASE and SD-WAN are both part of the
intelligent overlay that knows the state of a workload, dynamic policies can
optimize and orchestrate security services more efficiently. Businesses can
reduce cost and complexity with unified SASE so their users, devices, and
workloads have fast, reliable, secure connectivity with visibility, control, and
compliance—anytime, anywhere.
Software-defined technology has become an integral part of networking for
both CSPs and enterprises. The shift of SD-WAN to the edge allows enterprises
to virtualize their underlying networks, eliminating concerns about the
complexity of different network types like broadband, satellite, fixed wireless, or
5G. Instead, they can focus on the intelligent overlay that prioritizes and
programs applications over these networks.
Three essential characteristics of the software-defined
edge
Many edge locations have pain points—such as limited compute or network,
multiple sites, limited IT staff availability—that make it difficult to use traditional
IT methods for compute and connectivity. The software-defined edge
addresses these with three characteristics:
• Right-sized infrastructure “shrinks the stack” into a ruggedized unit that can fit
in small spaces and use any available network. In data centers, virtualization
scales to accommodate hundreds or thousands of diverse workloads on
shared infrastructure. But edge workloads are highly specialized and
constrained by hardware. While they can be virtualized, the scale is around a
6:1 ratio rather than 100,000:1 because tailored solutions take precedence
over scale. Right-sized edge infrastructure balances flexibility and resource
constraints to meet the specialized demands of edge workloads while
reducing cost and administrative complexity.
• Zero-touch orchestration with pull-based updates lets enterprises easily scale
management across hundreds, thousands, even millions of devices.
Traditional IT administration is push-based: IT sends updates to devices on
IT’s schedule. Pull-based updates are driven by a demand-centric model of
edge workloads that essentially administer themselves and seek out updates,
policy, and resources when they are needed, at the correct time. For example,
a workload that runs a manufacturing robot may only have a small window
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Software-Defined Edge
each day where it can be updated without disrupting operations. With zero-
touch orchestration, edge devices and systems can be remotely deployed,
configured, and managed automatically, reducing the need for on-site
personnel, and minimizing the risk, time, and cost of manual interventions.
• Network programmability ensures the network is aware of edge workload
needs and is enabled to optimize for or provision the right blend of resources
when needed. A programmable network paired with an intelligent overlay can
anticipate the unique requirements of edge compute workloads and
dynamically program the network for availability and optimal performance.
With real-time data and analytics, enterprises can proactively identify changes
in workload demand, traffic patterns, and potential congestion points,
enabling them to make informed, automated adjustments. This creates a
responsive and agile network ecosystem that not only meets but anticipates
the requirements of edge workloads, delivering reliability, low latency, and
connectivity, even in unpredictable conditions.
Components of the VMware software-defined edge
Figure 2: Comprehensive solution for edge deployments across enterprises and CSPs
The software-defined edge is a comprehensive portfolio of solutions that work
together to provide value and business-led solutions across enterprises and
telecommunications networks.
VMware Edge Compute Stack
VMware Edge Compute Stack is an edge-optimized runtime and orchestration
platform for frictionless management of edge apps and infrastructure across
many sites with limited resources. For organizations that want to build, run,
manage, connect, and protect applications across many edge sites with limited
compute, network, and IT resources, VMware Edge Compute Stack expertly
runs operational workloads, including real-time applications, and its simplified
operations reduce complexity and cost.
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Software-Defined Edge
VMware Edge Compute Stack consists of an edge-optimized management and
runtime. Both are tailored to the challenges faced in running and managing
workloads at edge sites.
Edge-optimized management is provided by VMware Edge Cloud Orchestrator.
It features a pull-based architecture which works best with many edge sites with
varying levels of connectivity (similar to how a smartphone updates itself).
Integrated telemetry in VMware Edge Cloud Orchestrator provides visibility into
applications and traffic at the edge.
Edge-optimized runtime uses proven VMware technology to run both
virtualized and container applications. It is optimized to fit OT workloads on
smaller and diverse hardware common at edge sites. It operates at low latency
to run demanding real-time workloads like robotics and computer vision,
repeatedly and safely.
VeloCloud solutions for the intelligent overlay
VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN is an intelligent overlay network layer that offers
enterprise-grade performance, security, visibility, and control of the WAN for
users accessing applications over both the public Internet and private networks.
Today’s branch and edge users are consuming more WAN bandwidth as they
collaborate online, consume SaaS and cloud services, access large rich-media
files, and use other bandwidth-intensive applications. WAN infrastructure needs
to be fast, reliable, and secure. However, most branch and edge WAN traffic is
carried over slow and expensive leased lines or cheaper, faster, but
unpredictable, consumer-grade Internet connections. This results in a poor user
experience accessing applications hosted in the cloud or data centers.
VeloCloud solutions solve these problems by providing intelligent services
(intelligent overlay) running on top of any circuit (underlay), including private
line, cable, DSL, 4G-LTE, 5G, fixed wireless, or satellite.
VeloCloud SD-WAN uses Dynamic Multipath Optimization™ (DMPO) and deep
application recognition to improve delivery reliability. It automatically bundles
all available uplinks and load-balances traffic, identifying and steering the most
critical business applications over the best performing links. At the same time, it
provides sub-second failover, automatically fixing underlying circuit issues such
as packet drops, jitter, and delay.
The intelligent overlay hides the complexity of the underlay from enterprises,
providing resiliency, connectivity, and security over whichever underlay or
combination of underlays best serves the business. It can program the underlay
to understand the application running on it and obtain the appropriate level of
connectivity based on business policy and security needs. This allows
enterprises to assign priority to critical services across a distributed network,
and allows CSPs to monetize new, differentiated services.
VMware VeloCloud SD-Access provides enterprise IT with an easy and secure
remote access solution for remote workers and IoT devices anywhere that
optimizes connections for speed and reliability—bridging the needs of IT and
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Software-Defined Edge
OT. Based on the principles of zero trust, it offers a simple, secure, and cloud-
managed remote access service to securely connect remote users, endpoints
and devices from anywhere to applications and critical resources that are
located at the edge and in the cloud.
VMware VeloCloud SASE™, secured by Symantec is the single-vendor SASE
solution that features best-in-class VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN and Security
Service Edge (SSE) capabilities from Symantec. It enables users to access any
application from any location in a secure, reliable, and efficient manner.
VeloCloud SASE automatically connects VeloCloud SD-WAN and VeloCloud
SD-Access users, devices and edge-native applications to Symantec security
cloud enforcement on an optimal path. The solution performs deep packet
inspection for threat and data protection, delivering a rich end user experience
and reducing the operational burden for IT.
VMware Telco Cloud Platform
Supporting the variety of use cases at the edge requires a highly performant
and dynamic connectivity network so that edge locations can talk to each other
and to clouds, data centers and networks. VMware Telco Cloud Platform is the
programmable network foundation for CSPs. It can expose varying connectivity
resources to edge locations via APIs to allow applications to program the right
services with the right characteristics, at the right times.
With built-in telco-grade automation and assurance, Telco Cloud Platform
brings unparalleled agility to CSPs’ core networks. Telco Cloud Platform RAN
extends those capabilities to the RAN, which opens previously siloed telco
access networks to enable multi-vendor solutions. Modernized, software-
defined infrastructure helps CSPs be more operationally agile, reduce OpEx
across the core and the RAN, and expand their service portfolios for improved
customer experiences.
CSPs are expanding and modernizing their offerings to include technologies
such as fixed wireless access, to compete with new services and in new areas.
Telco Cloud Platform allows CSPs to design more efficient wireless and 5G
networks that help them develop innovative services and get to market faster.
The cloud-native platform decouples containerized functions from the
infrastructure so they can be deployed quickly, shared among services, updated
easily, and managed independently. Orchestration and automation dynamically
scale network functions to meet changes in demand.
For their enterprise customers looking to enable use cases at the edge, CSPs
can use network slicing to partition, or slice, physical infrastructure to provide
independent, isolated, and programmable virtual networks. This allows CSPs to
address specific connectivity requirements for each customer’s edge use case.
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Software-Defined Edge
Learn more Orchestration and management across the software-defined edge
VMware Telco Cloud Platform, VMware Edge Cloud Orchestrator is a unified management console for both
[Link] VMware VeloCloud and VMware Edge Compute Stack. It helps enterprises
plan, deploy, run, visualize, and manage edge infrastructure environments to
VMware VeloCloud solutions,
eliminate silos and help streamline operational complexity for IT and OT teams
[Link]
from a single pane of glass. It allows business units within enterprises to adopt
VMware Edge Compute Stack, whatever OT technology they need to be successful, and lets IT orchestrate,
[Link]/products/ secure, and network OT devices to benefit the entire business. VMware Edge
[Link] Cloud Orchestrator helps both IT and OT teams reduce cost and complexity for
their edge environments.
Edge solutions take advantage of the AIOps features of VMware Edge
Intelligence, built in to VMware Edge Cloud Orchestrator and VeloCloud SD-
WAN, to provide visibility and insight into users’ application experience. With
AI-based insights into an entire enterprise environment, companies can detect,
isolate, and automatically remediate issues caused by wireless or wired LAN,
SD-WAN, network services, security services, and applications with AI/ML—
from the data center to a mobile device located anywhere. VMware Edge
Intelligence also provides analytics and observability features to workloads and
infrastructure managed by VMware Edge Compute Stack.
Bringing leadership and expertise to the edge
VMware by Broadcom uniquely addresses all three layers of the software-
defined edge with technology proven in the data center and telecom networks.
VMware pioneered virtualization in data centers and is helping hundreds of
CSPs modernize networks from the core to the RAN. VMware is a SASE and
SD-WAN market share leader, and a six-time Gartner® Magic Quadrant™
Leader in SD-WAN. Our vision is to make the software-defined edge more
sustainable, equitable, secure, and, most important, ubiquitously connected.
Copyright © 2024 Broadcom. All rights reserved.
The term “Broadcom” refers to Broadcom Inc. and/or its subsidiaries. For more information, go to [Link]. All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos
referenced herein belong to their respective companies. Broadcom reserves the right to make changes without further notice to any products or data herein to improve reliability,
function, or design. Information furnished by Broadcom is believed to be accurate and reliable. However, Broadcom does not assume any liability arising out of the application or
use of this information, nor the application or use of any product or circuit described herein, neither does it convey any license under its patent rights nor the rights of others.
Item No: sde-2006-Software-Defined-Edge-so-0424
