Edge Computing Technology

In this year, we have heard several buzzwords one of which is the Edge computing Technology. So, what is “Edge Computing Technology”? Why has it created such great fuss? Let us check it out.

Since the industrial evolution, man has been craving for changes. These can be innovations, inventions or discoveries that would increase the efficiency of the existing devices or systems. Most of the techniques have been put in use. There are very few places that are left to turn for continued improvements, industrial organization performance and profit. Using technological enhancements, industrial companies began to drive new levels of performance and productivity and in this process, edge computing provides equation to accelerate digital transformation. This is not a new concept. Several trends have been combined to create an opportunity to help industrial organisation convert huge amount of machine-based data to actionable intelligence data closer to the source.

What is Edge Computing Technology?

Edge Computing Technology is a way to streamline the traffic flow from IoT devices and provide real-time local data analysis. The Edge Computing technology is a practice of processing data near the edge of our network. The Edge could be a place where the data is being generated. This should not be a centralized data-processing warehouse.

Wikipedia has defined the edge ‘computing technology’ as “pushing the frontier of computing application, data and services away from centralised nodes to the logical extremes of the network. This technology enables analysis and data gathering to occur at the source of the data. Edge Computing Technology is a distributed, open IT architecture that features decentralised processing power, enabling mobile computing and IoT technologies. “Edge” in the term Edge Technology refers to the computing infrastructure that exists close to the sources of data. Edge computing Technology allows data produced by IoT devices to process closer to where data is created instead of sending it across long routes to data centres or clouds.

Edge Computing Technology is a mesh network of microdata centres that process or store critical data locally and push all received data to a central data centre or cloud storage repository, in a footprint of less than 100 sq. ft. Typically referred to in IoT use cases, where edge devices would collect data-sometimes massive amounts of it- and send it all to a data centre or cloud for processing. Edge Computing triages the data locally so some of it is processed locally, reducing the back-hall traffic to the central repository.

Why is Edge Computing Technology important?

Edge Computing Technology deployments are ideal in many circumstances.

1. When the IoT devices have poor connectivity and not efficient for devices to connect to central cloud.

2. The Edge Computing Technology has latency sensitive information processing capability. This reduces the latency because data doesn’t have to traverse over network to datacentre or cloud for processing.

3. Edge Computing enables data stream acceleration. This includes real-time data processing without latency. Edge Computing allows smart application and devices to respond to data almost simultaneously, as it is being created, eliminating lag time.

4. Edge computing Technology allows efficient data processing. In that, large amounts of data can be processed near the source, reducing Internet bandwidth usage. This eliminates costs and ensures that application can be used effectively in remote location.

Some Important terms related to Edge computing.

Like most technology areas, edge computing has its own lexicon, some of which maybe referred to as follows:

1. Edge Devices: These are devices that produce data. These devices could be sensors, industrial machines, or other devices that produce or collect data.

2. Edge: The edge depends on the use case. For example: In a telecommunication field, edge might be cell phone or cell tower. In an automotive scenario, edge of the network could be a car. In manufacturing, it could be a machine.

3. Edge Gateway: A Gateway is the buffer between edge computing processing is done and broader for network. The gateway is the window into the larger environment beyond the edge off the network.

4. Fat Client: Software that can do some data processing in the edge devices. This is opposed to a thin client which would merely transfer data.

5. The Edge Computing Equipments: Edge Computing uses a range of existing and new equipment. Many devices, sensors, and machines can be outfitted to work in an edge computing environment by simply making them accessible to the internet.

6. Mobile Edge Computing:  It refers to the buildout of edge computing system in the telecommunication system, particularly in 5G scenarios.