Summary
Catchpoint has begun deploying Nodes in AWS Wavelenght locations. These are currently deployed as Wireless nodes with names thsat distinguish them as AWS Wavelength. Tests on these nodes will use the same network point multiplier (5x) as on other wireless nodes. Customers must request access to use Catchpoint wireless nodes via their Customer Success Manager.
In the future, we will move these to a new node network dedicated to edge computing and expand with other edge computing providers. A timeline for setting up the new node network and migrating the Wavelength nodes will be provided later. In the meantime, we encourage interested users to try these preview nodes. Potential use cases are listed below.
What is AWS Wavelength?
AWS Wavelength is an AWS infrastructure optimized for mobile edge computing (MEC) applications. It embeds AWS compute and storage services within communications service providers’ datacenters at the edge of the 5G network. This enables application providers to deploy their services much closer to their end-users, just inside the cellular radio access network (RAN), and eliminate the latency that would result from users’ application traffic having to traverse multiple hops across the Internet to reach their destination.
More info about Mobile/Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC
Customer Value & Use Cases
Just as Backbone nodes monitor from the ISP edge (without the wireline last mile), Wavelength nodes will monitor from the mobile carrier edge (without the cellular radio last mile).
These nodes will enable Catchpoint customers to monitor end-user experience from the mobile 5G network edge on multiple carriers and in multiple locations, without the over-the-air variability that mobile devices experience.
Tests can also be run from Wavelength locations to other services and applications across the internet as a way of monitoring the performance at the edge sites, similar to multi-cloud and hybrid cloud testing.
Use cases for testing at mobile edge compute nodes include the following:
5G End-User Experience: Monitor and baseline the digital experience of end users on mobile 5G networks without the variability of the RAN last mile. This can include human users accessing web-based services from their 5G devices, or IoT devices connected over the 5G network. Testing from these nodes will provide consistent performance measurements, which is good for baselining and alerting.
Edge Application Experience: Companies will deploy applications in network edge zones to reduce latency to their end-users in those areas. Most of those applications will still need to connect to other services and applications across the Internet. For this use case, testing from Wavelength nodes will monitor the performance experienced by the applications hosted in those Wavelength locations.
Edge Benchmarking: Companies who buy and sell edge-compute solutions often want to evaluate network performance at competing edge locations for benchmarking purposes. Buyers want to know if the performance improvement is worth the investment. Sellers want to know how they stand up to the competition.
Node Locations and Carriers
Catchpoint is initially deploying nodes in the following AWS Wavelength locations:
Node Naming Convention
AWS Wavelength nodes will use the following naming convention:
<City>, <Country> - <provider> - AWS Wavelength
Examples:
- Boston, US - VZN - AWS Wavelength
- Osaka, JP - KDDI - AWS Wavelength
Limitations
AWS Wavelength nodes are not allowed to originate UDP requests out to the Internet. For example, you cannot set up a DNS test to an external resolver like 8.8.8.8 or 1.1.1.1. As a result, such UDP protocol tests will fail due to timeout.
Tests which may use UDP are listed below. Note that some tests can also use TCP. For example, Ping (TCP) to an external address would be supported on AWS Wavelength nodes work, while Ping (UDP) would not.
- DNS Direct (UDP)
- DNS Experience
- Transport Test (UDP)
- Ping (UDP)
- Traceroute (UDP)
- Node-to-Node (Ping UPD and Traceroute UDP)