Telstra and Adtran celebrate world first: unlocking the potential of device edge through Red Hat OpenShift to help businesses get more value from their hardware.

Telstra today announced it has achieved a world first in collaboration with Adtran and Red Hat to successfully test and validate a new way of using evices to more easily connect customers to Telstra’s network, unlocking more value from hardware already installed in the network.

As part of the milestone, Telstra installed Red Hat OpenShift directly on the Adtran Network Termination Unit (NTU), allowing a customer to run and manage small applications efficiently at the device edge.

It means customers can save money and space by using less of their own computers or cloud services, and ultimately add security functionality to their network, monitor their data usage, or store some of their data locally.

Channa Seneviratne, Telstra’s Technology Development and Innovation Executive, said device edge is a new pioneering area of edge computing, enabling new opportunities for Telstra customers.

"This initiative pushes the boundaries of how device edge capabilities will enhance the way businesses operate, helping them do more with less and generate more value from existing hardware,” said Mr Seneviratne.

“Alongside simplification, this trial demonstrates how we can enable a more distributed and intelligent network with better resiliency, performance and workload distribution.

“It’s another step forward in our ambition to unlock more value for customers and continue to drive technology leadership.”

Adtran FSP 150 is widely deployed by Telstra as a universal NTU across its Data & IP services and Red Hat is a market leader in container-based workload hosting and automation for enterprise applications.

Ben Panic, Red Hat’s Vice President, Global Telco Centre of Excellence, said device edge is pivotal in driving new opportunities for delivering applications to the enterprise market.

“By harnessing Telstra's world-class networks and combining them with Adtran's hardware, supported on Red Hat OpenShift in a single node at the edge, we can foster greater innovation and expedite the deployment of solutions in the market.”

“This approach to the device edge is an important part of fully software-defined and automated digital infrastructure. With this level of automation at scale, Telstra is better able to deliver applications across Australia efficiently,” said Mr Panic.

Eli Angel, Adtran’s Vice President of Product Line Management for Ethernet Access, said “Adtran’s FSP 150 products combine best-in-class Carrier Ethernet functionality with open hosting for edge cloud applications. This enables operators like Telstra to offer assured business-class data services combined with innovative hosting of end-user services – all in the same carrier-class device.”