The “open standard” schema is said to accelerate service speed, manage data at the edge and avoid vendor lock-in.
Enea announced what it says is the industry’s first virtualised data schema that enables mobile operators to map 4G and 5G data models into a single, customisable view from the 5G core to the edge.
Developed for the Enea’s Stratum Network Data Layer, the solution is said to break through vertical data silos, allowing operators to launch and onboard new use cases like edge computing, network slicing and IoT, while interworking with 4G systems and the 5G core.
Pivotal moment
ABI’s Senior Research Director, Dimitris Mavrakis said, “Enea’s Stratum comes at a pivotal moment for operators. Operators want to enter the enterprise market with 5G and use AI and ML to monetize a variety of use cases. Yet 4G/5G centralized data platforms have been a major pain point for operators with proprietary and centralized databases that did not scale.
“A growing number of operators – including AT&T, Telenor, Telefonica, Orange and Vodafone – have implemented significant upgrades to their data platform strategies. More operators will deploy virtualized, distributed systems in line with their cloud-native strategies.”
Enea’s open standard virtual schema is based on 3GPP guidelines that opens the data path to allow operators to manage 5G and 4G data: sunlike the service-based architecture (SBA) in the 5G core, 4G lacks the standards that separate data and functions.
No longer at the mercy?
This means mobile operators “have been at the mercy of their infrastructure vendor, with added data management costs when they needed to make system changes to launch new 5G services with legacy 4G data systems,” according to the press statement.
Roland Steiner, Senior Vice President for Telecoms, Enea, commented, “Data is at heart of 5G, and operators need genuine agility to maximize their potential.
“But network providers have struggled to manage 4G and 5G data on their own terms. Our virtualized 5G core data management solution gives ownership of data back to operators so they can take back control of their data and their network.”
Stratum is cloud native, so mobile operators can dynamically onboard new services faster and support data management at the edge, plus data that is created or updated in one location can be accessed and read anywhere – securely and instantly, according to Enea.