Edge Computing and why it is important in a Full Fibre Network

November 10, 2021 Full Fibre No Comments

When developing Exascale’s Full Fibre network we wanted to provide the best service possible, this didn’t just mean providing reliable Full Fibre Gigabit speeds. Therefore, we developed our own anycast edge computing, which we call Exascale Edge. Exascale Edge brings DNS and a whole host of other services as close as possible to our access networks in all our regions we have network or Full Fibre networks.

Exascale, having its own national MPLS network and peering arrangements with over 500 networks globally including cloud, content and other access networks allows us to “anycast” multiple services (including DNS) regionally across our national network.

Anycast means we have multiple instances of Exascale Edge listening on the same IP addresses in multiple locations.

Utilising the BGP routing protocol we instruct traffic originating in a region to target the closest regions Exascale Edge. This improves internet page load times dramatically, reduces congestion on our backhaul links between regions and provides additional resilience if a regions Exascale Edge were to fail.

As the prominence of 5G grows and internet traffic increases, Edge computing will play a key role in ensuring lower latency and access times to content and critical IoT systems. Improving the user experience and productivity of many business operations.

Time for change

Traditionally and most commonly today, internet traffic is transported to either the Docklands in London or Manchester in the United Kingdom. We believe this needs to change, by bringing content and services as close as possible to the user.  Thats why Exascale, routes traffic locally and doesnt transport it to the Docklands or Manchester to make routing decisions.  We do this regionally.

Exascale in early 2022 will allow third party content providers and MNOs to co-locate equipment in our FEX (Fibre Exchange) and network sites, or use our edge compute nodes to allow the announcement of their own internet addressing into our network, improving the internet experience for all.

Full Fibre connectivity is just the start.