Press Releases

Working Group of Carriers, Data Center Owners, Equipment & Cabling Suppliers & More Will Establish Standards for Mass Scale Operation of Edge Data Centers

Arlington, VA (February 22, 2018) – The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), the leading association representing the manufacturers and suppliers of high-tech communications networks, today announced the launch of the Edge Data Center Working Group. The new group brings together carriers, data center owners, equipment and cabling suppliers, consultants, auditing firms, and others, to establish standards and best practices for the mass scale operation of edge data centers.

The TIA Working Group will focus on a range of pressing industry issues, including security, operational risk management, orchestration and scheduling of lifecycle management events across the supplier ecosystem, and open network topology management. It will also help develop protocols to enable interoperability, authorization, access and movement, facilitating data services across licensed and unlicensed operator networks.  

“We listened to the industry and recognized that companies need guidelines to unlock the full potential of edge data centers while minimizing risk,” said Wes Johnston, CEO of TIA. “Combining our experience in standards development with the expertise of industry leaders, this group will establish best practices for safe and effective deployment of edge data centers at large scale.”

TIA also named the members of the Edge Data Center Working Group executive committee:

• Rebecca Hunter, External Affairs, Corporate Development & Strategy, Crown Castle—Chair of Working Group
• Don Duet, President & COO, Vapor IO—Chair of Whitepaper Committee
• Don Byrne, President & CEO, METRIX411—Chair of 942 Edge Integration Committee

Hunter said, “The Edge Data Center Working Group will provide assurance and engagement across the supply chain. As a result, a large ‘network’ of smaller micro data centers can be developed and managed without introducing significant additional risk and cost.”

“The committee will deliver a set of auditable requirements that define the physical, technical, logical, procedural, and reporting characteristics of Edge Data Centers,” said Byrne.

Duet added, “Our hope is that this initiative will help facilitate the development of thousands of edge data centers spanning major metropolitan areas. These facilities will interoperate with large, centralized cloud data centers, while pushing highly-specialized, low-latency workloads to the edge of the network and closer to the end user or device.”

Companies interested in joining the working group should contact TIA’s Vice President of Program Development, Harry Smeenk at hsmeenk@tiaonline.org.

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