According to the technological prediction, this year is going to be a year with huge technological innovation, and this huge technological growth and innovation will create a world more efficient and easier for us. With these technological innovations, we are making ourselves more prone to the digital world, we use mobile phones, share information with the internet, turn on/off a system with just a touch of our finger. And all of these technology embedded sensors, social media platforms, several economic sites, search engines have one thing in common, and that is the data. Yes, they all produce a huge quantity of data, and most of them were being shared on the internet. This data consists of information that may be a personal photo, location history, even customer preferences, marketing information, or legal and official documents.
The world is already being digital and we are using our lives most of this digital platform and services, and our workplaces too. The huge growth of remote services and implementations of updated technology in businesses is increasing the production of data and this affects the data sharing process. As the amount and speed of data sharing are incensed, it affects the efficiency of information shared to a data center, such as Cloud, also the cloud might not be able to handle all of this at a time due to an increased amount of data generated by numerous IoT connected devices. In this scenario, edge computing can be a solution for processing data in a faster, cheaper, and reliable way. So let’s be more elaborate about what is this edge computing and why it should matter to us!
What is Edge Computing?
The term edge computing refers to a computing infrastructure at the close to the data source. According to Gartner, it is a distributed computing framework that allows the data to be processed at the edge of the data source or as close to it as possible. The edge computing enables the connected devices to process the data at the edge of the data source, like in the devices itself like the technological sensors as well as to as close as possible to the data source, by replacing the costs and time to process the data area data centers that might be present at miles away.
It has been developed due to the high demand for IoT devices, these numerous IoT devices are connected to the internet for either downloading information from the web or to upload information to the cloud, and all of these devices produce an enormous amount of data throughout the process. And for that moment the cloud may not be able to process al, the data with an efficient and reliable way, and that’s why sometimes it is called the next form of Cloud computing. Big companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. have started to leverage this new technology in their business.
How does this Edge Computing work?
Edge computing works like an accelerator in the process of data processing. As I previously said that the huge growth of the Internet of Things and more connected devices are generating an enormous amount of data while working, and sharing this real-time data over the internet cause heavy traffic in the network and hampers the velocity and efficiency of this data sharing process, also it consumes huge amounts of power and time both for this process.
Edge computing brings both of these data and the computation closer to the edge of the data source, and creates local networks for each of the devices with their servers so that the data can be stored in the mini networks of a server around a device or a location and can be shared when required. It also allows the data-generating applications, to work under a higher bandwidth and lower latency rate, to reduce the network traffic and the heavy workloads over the networks, and so that the devices can process data efficiently and reliably. The edge devices can be a security camera, an employee’s laptop, or as well as any smart devices that have the ability to be connected with the internet and share the data over a network, all of these devices are called edge devices, when being present at an edge computing infrastructure.
Benefits of using Edge Computing in Business:
The main goal of this edge computing technology is to reduce the latency rate and bring both the computing power and data storage closer to each other and bringing the public data center to the edge of the data source. And it will save a lot of time and power as well. For example, let’s think about a device continuously gathering data from the network and sharing it with the public data cloud. If this device has to make a sudden decision regarding a crucial problem, should it wait for the data centers to process its data and respond to it back? If yes, just imagine how much of the time and power will it be consumed as well as the costs too?
But if the scenario is like the device has its own local data center present on its network, and it shares the data with its local data centers then it would never happen. The huge distance and time got automatically cut off from the scenario, also the data can be shared to the public cloud, only when it will be requited form a user of a different network. Just imagine how much it will add more efficiency to the whole process, and businesses should use this process as soon as possible for this. Also, for using edge computing over any other has 3 advantages as follows,
First, comes with the Security part, let’s think you withdraw a good amount of money from your bank, and you know some people have an eye on your money from the very first. Now you have to walk around 5 miles to reach home, there could be a risk for you to get attacked by the robbers in the middle of the way, and your money could be stolen. Just like the data, data is our main asset in this digital world, and if this data has to travel a long way to reach the public data center for being processed, strong chances are there for the data to be breached in the middle of its journey. Now imagine that you are doing net banking, and all of the transactions will be done through the internet only, you don’t have to step out of your house, so your money is safe with you. Same in case of the data also, if it has been shared at the edge of its source, then it has fewer chances to get stolen, or breached.
Second, comes to the points of efficiency, same as like, if you have to travel for about 1 mile with loads of traffic on the road, then it will surely hamper your efficiency to work in the office as you get tired, similarly, if your data has to travel a long way with network traffic, then chances are there for the data not to be well processed at the real-time by the public data centers. But if you work from your nearby places and visit the office only when needed then it will certainly improve your efficiency, and the same goes for the data as well. That is why edge computing is much needed in our lives, especially for the businesses as they produce huge data sets which may be sometimes confidential and needed to be well processed.
Third, come with real-time responsiveness, like you have to inform someone really important news and have to travel almost 5 miles distances to reach up to him, and that person has no mobile phone. You see you couldn’t be able to provide him real-time news. Same goes for the data if you want a real-time data, say for example video footage, and if data should be processed from the public data center, you will never be able to get the real-time footage, but if you have a local data center on your own network, you can easily get that, just like if the person is your neighbor, you will be able to provide him the important news at the same time.
The above passages show you about edge computing and why would it matter so much in our lives! You have seen all the benefits of edge computing as well in this article. We all know that everything in this World has a drawback along with its benefits and nothing different in this case too. The edge computing has one drawback and that is edge computing infrastructure may not be possible to set up on some locations which do not have such advancements for the new technologies, also if a human error is found while setting up the infrastructure, the whole computing will go on a wrong way. But, despite this, the Edge Computing is really something which will help the businesses at its most. Only one thing to say while the innovative technologies are aiming to make our lives easier, Edge computing is focussing on taking the computing at the next level.
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