Cloud and edge computing are essential technologies in a computing continuum to ensure data is managed more efficiently – closer to the originating source rather than transmitting raw data to data centres. As recent studies suggest, data processing is moving closer to the edge.

Following the Industry 4.0 vision of a full digitization of the industry, time-critical services and applications, allowing network infrastructures to deliver information with determinism and reliability, are becoming more and more relevant for a set of vertical sectors.

Network Applications is seen as a full-potential enabler for future vertical industries beyond current deployment. Therefore, it must be considered along with other 6G enabling technologies in the next-generation network architecture.

A trend in future networks (i.e., beyond 5G and 6G) is the increasing virtualization and disaggregation of networks (i.e., Open Radio Access Network, network function virtulization/software-defined networking, or disaggregated optical networks, among others).