AT&T and Microsoft are working together on Azure Operator Distributed Services, with initial testing stages planned for later this year, Microsoft officials said. As part of today’s announcements, Microsoft said a private preview of the Azure Operator 5G Core, which deploys on the Azure Operator Distributed Services platform, is now available. Microsoft is also making a public preview of the Azure Private 5G Core, a 5G packet-core-as-a-service for the aforementioned Azure private MEC solution. The Azure Private 5G Core is meant to give operators and system integrators a way to deploy private 4G and 5G networks at the edge on products like Azure Stack Edge. At MWC, Microsoft also announced Azure public MEC, which officials described as supporting high-performance, low-latency apps at the operator edge using operators’ public 5G network connectivity. Using Azure public MEC, customers can analyze data closer to where it is captured from users and edge-enabled devices like industrial IoT devices, cars and smartphones. Microsoft is collaborating with a variety of operators and ISVs to deliver Azure public MEC, including AT&T, Singtel, Checkpoint, Couchbase and VMware. Azure for Operators is one of four key, strategic businesses that Microsoft is cultivating as part of its Strategic Missions and Technologies team, which the company formed in November last year. Jason Zander is the Executive Vice President in charge of that team.
