The future is built on connectivity and connectivity is built on millions of individual edge locations: cell sites, data centers, mini data centers and specialized networks monitoring public and private infrastructure. These locations are connecting billions of edge devices, from cell phones to smart cameras to the autonomous vehicle ecosystem to sensors in just about everything.
The reliability of the infrastructure is the cornerstone of the connected future. And while there are very well-developed approaches to managing the IT performance of the network infrastructure, monitoring and managing the physical infrastructure is inconsistent. Cell sites are vulnerable to forest fires and storms, as well as normal wear and tear from ambient conditions and power failures.
According to one of our customers, an engineer with a major network operator, the stakes have been raised, “If you don’t know the ambient temp outside your cell site, you are sitting on a timebomb. If it gets too hot your network is going to break.”
Mobile network operators are responding to these challenges with massive investments in backup power systems, but the gap is in monitoring power, temperature, equipment health and environment. And having the ability to use remote sensor data to diagnose and repair or dispatch a repair team with the parts and technical knowledge the first time.
Modern Network Infrastructure Management solutions, like Modius, provide an end-to-end approach to monitoring and managing edge infrastructure to deliver deep analytics, pro-active actions based on predictive modeling, automated performance management and clear direction for field teams. The foundation of modern Network Infrastructure Management is based on best practices gleaned from Data Center Infrastructure Management, where the design of the facility, physical environment and power usage plays a key role in delivering high performance, reliability and maximum ROI.
Having visibility into every site on the network is critical to understanding overall network health. A senior network engineer said “When the NOC gets a ticket and fixes the problem, these are like grains of sand. But no one is trying to count the sand on the beach, no one sees the beach.”
As the leader in physical infrastructure monitoring and management, Modius is in a unique position to work with mobile network operators, utilities, municipalities, telecom and data center companies to manage their edge network infrastructure more efficiently for higher reliability and ROI. The Modius OpenData platform enables Modius customers to manage their entire network infrastructure from one pane of glass at a significantly lower cost than competitive solutions.
Connectivity is critical to public safety and just about every aspect of modern business. Effective management of the network infrastructure is critical to delivering on the promise of connectivity.
Photo by Thomas Millot on Unsplash
