Tackling the 5G Complexity Beast with MongoDB’s Developer Data Platform Simplicity

The advent and commercialization of 5G is driving a sea change in the mobile user experience. This success is evidenced by the booming adoption of 5G-enabled devices.

Supporting real-time business, streaming, and gaming applications on a 5G network is essential for telecommunications companies’ enterprise growth but demanding on the systems that support them. As the “cloudification” of network functions continues to evolve, it grows more challenging for older business support systems (BSS) and operations support systems (OSS) to keep up. To address the needs of increasingly complex networks, operators are reevaluating their data strategy by recognizing that a developer-focused data platform, to address the needs of mission critical systems, can enable a greater level of agility across the enterprise.

This is the thesis of a new IDC white paper, sponsored by MongoDB, Effective Data Management is Essential for Taming the 5G Network Complexity Beast (doc #US49660722, September 2022). In the analysis, led by Karl Whitelock, Research Vice President, Communication Service Provider - Operations & Monetization, IDC examines the new generation of services that will drive innovation in multiple industries, and reviews solutions for the challenges telecommunications providers will face amid new operations and monetization strategies derived from 5G and mobile edge computing services.

Building business solutions at the network edge

As software-driven 5G services evolve through a cloud-native network architecture, complexity grows. Within the multi-technology network, an advancing web of systems connects data from the mobile network to an edge cloud, HCP cloud, the core network, the internet, and back again. To manage this complexity, network automation and extensive data analytics capabilities are key components in delivering a first-class customer experience.

The new generation of digital services is 5G enabled. IDC is witnessing demand from social media, streaming video, search, gaming, transport, and industrial internet IoT applications building network traffic, and associated data, at soaring rates.

Businesses across diverse industries are jumping on the 5G bandwagon. The business solutions being dreamed up by developers are redefining services and business outcomes, particularly when utilizing delivery at the network edge. For example:

This is a small sample of what’s possible. In reality, any organization looking to solve typical data usage challenges can benefit from 5G-enabled solutions like low-latency data processing, cloud-to-network traffic management, IoT applications, and more. We dive into more examples of how mobile edge computing is revolutionizing data management in our blog, Computing in the Real World.

Hurdles telcos meet while expanding and monetizing 5G and mobile edge computing services

The demands of today’s modern applications, which more and more businesses rely on, are often dependent on decades-old implementations. While these systems are functional in siloed operations, their legacy design hinders the ability to take advantage of the benefits of new technologies such as cloudified networking, network slicing and multi-access edge computing.

Telecom operators face many challenges as they work to build new operations and monetization strategies from 5G and MEC, including:

1. Existing complexity: This can come in the form of previously implemented processes, workflow data inconsistencies, or dead ends that minimize flow through systems integration.

2. Inflexible systems: It’s not uncommon to find inflexible systems and embedded data that are cloned for the same business functions.

3. Slow to launch: Siloed systems can lead to delays in order processing and new service tariff creation, as well as miscommunications between the order management and network resource orchestration functions.

4. Confusing dependencies: Legacy dependencies between internal workloads can sometimes be nearly impossible to understand.

5. Lack of transparency: Look out for limited transparency into services and customers, such as an inability to send out delivery statuses or operational usage levels.

6. No real-time capability: This comes up as a lack of dynamic architectural capabilities.

7. Distributed data: New cloud-based technology infrastructure and data for AI and ML algorithms is distributed across multiple installed IT systems.

Leveraging a modern platform to address data challenges

An agile database is essential to managing agile data. As telcos continue to build out complex networks and high-bandwidth applications, the volumes and varieties of data processed, captured, and leveraged in the network will keep snowballing. Networks will sprawl out in complexity and size, with most individual telecommunications providers running hundreds of applications and associated databases to keep the network operational.

Over time, complexity kills speed and innovation. Why would an enterprise run hundreds of databases, when it could achieve the scalability, flexibility, and reliability needed to grow with a single platform?

“Selecting the right database is a strategic decision that directly impacts developer productivity, application performance and, ultimately, an organization’s attractiveness to customers,” IDC states in its report.