China Unicom Builds MEC Edge Cloud Smart Water Platform

Data Brief

The first MEC smart water application for commercial purpose

The building of a smart water management platform in the 5G era

Client's testimony

China Unicom attaches high importance to the commercial development of the edge cloud, and vigorously promotes innovation and incubation of edge applications by working with H3C and other partners. The Sichuan Smart Water Project, as China Unicom's exploration and practical achievement in the frontier of the 5G edge ecosystem, will further lead the innovation and development of industrial application of 5G MEC, and accelerate the commercial use of the 5G network.

Wang Changling

Core Network Chief Architect, China Unicom Group

Relevant products: Servers, New Networks (SDN & NFV), Cloud Computing, Big Data

Relevant solutions: Cloud Computing, Big Data, Carriers

With the innovation and development of the 5G technology, edge computing has created a new computing platform for Internet of Things and other new applications. In the Sichuan Smart Water Project, China Unicom, H3C and other partners work together to build a mobile network-based edge cloud platform that provides observation and analysis of water conservancy data, effectively promoting the construction and development of smart water.

In the era of Internet of Everything, the evolution and maturity of the 5G technology will not only drive the complete remodeling of network architecture, but also promote the transformation of computing architecture. Nowadays, Mobile network with higher reliability and performance, Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) is promoting the deployment of high-bandwidth low-latency localized services on the network edge, which makes data analysis and utilization faster, cheaper and more efficient. Meanwhile, it further optimizes the future network bandwidth experience. This change benefits the water conservancy industry directly.

As one of the important commercial projects in MEC edge cloud business of China Unicom, Sichuan Smart Water Project is the first application of MEC-based wireless access solution in the water conservancy industry, and also a successful deployment of New H3C Group (H3C)'s application-driven MEC edge computing solution in the mobile communication network. It verifies the feasibility and advantages of MEC-based mobile communication network to be applied in the water conservancy industry from all aspects, and provides an important reference for carriers to deploy edge cloud in the 5G era.

Sichuan Smart Water Project: Successful Practice of 5G Edge Cloud Computing

Through the 4/5 G mobile communication network, China Unicom has applied the MEC edge cloud platform deployed by H3C in its Sichuan Smart Water Project, to realize the traffic offloading of the videos captured by the cameras distributed in various waters, and provide river channel float monitoring, water level reading, illegal sand mining monitoring and other services for typical industry application scenarios. It has greatly reduced the occupation of resources transmitted by the carriers' mobile core network, mobile return network and backbone carrier network, and effectively met the requirements of partial water conservancy business for ultra-low latency. The successful implementation of this project not only creates a more convenient and efficient network foundation for the water conservancy industry, but also explores the application scenarios and business value of the future 5G innovation for carriers.

The MEC edge cloud solution of H3C plays an important role in the deployment and implementation of this project. This open and decoupled MEC edge cloud solution has many advantages such as a neutral, open and cloud-based architecture, extensive industry experience, and end-to-end integration capabilities. On the whole, H3C has formed a complete set of MEC industrial solutions based on the MEC technology architecture model integrating "cloud, network, security, and infrastructure", and officially launched "5G-MEC Smart Water Video Cloud" for the industry together with China Unicom and Wanjiang Technology, further accelerating the commercial deployment of 5G.

Edge Networking Innovation, Leading Water Conservancy Industry to the Intelligent Era

In Sichuan Smart Water Project, China Unicom joined hands with H3C and other partners, jointly verifying the unprecedented advantages and values that edge cloud computing based on mobile networks can bring to the water conservancy industry from many aspects. The full coverage and flexible deployment of wireless network can effectively reduce the difficulty of project construction and save costs. In addition, the 4G/5G mobile communication network is highly reliable to the extent that it is comparable to the carrier grade, which has greatly improved the network security for clients in the industry. Meanwhile, the business deployment to the edge reduces the bandwidth pressure on returning network and mobile core network of carriers, and effectively meets the demand of business for ultra-low latency. In addition, thanks to the innovative combination of MEC and AI technologies, it will be possible for water conservancy clients to make use of several typical applications in water conservancy industry, like rapidly identify floats on the river, and monitor water level and illegal sand mining, so that the intelligent alarm with unattended operation really comes true.

Relying on the combination of 5G network, MEC edge cloud, government-enterprise cloud and other innovative technologies, H3C helps China Unicom to provide a variety of value-added services to water conservancy clients in addition to network traffic. At the same time, by deploying edge clouds on the edge of carriers' networks and providing IT pooling resources, it also paves the way for supporting government and enterprise business in multi-industries in the future, assisting telecom carriers to realize the digital transformation from being pipeline builders to ecological builders, and ultimately accelerating the process of digital transformation of clients from different industries.

In the future, H3C will continue to help carriers, including China Unicom, to promote applications and business innovations of 5G MEC edge cloud in various business scenarios, to facilitate network restructuring and business transformation process of carriers, and promote the practical experience of water conservancy industry to more industries, making greater contribution to the digital transformation of hundreds of industries!