Paul McGuinness, head of solutions EMEA at Megaport, discusses the forgotten gap between the edge of a network and where we are collecting data
The buzz around technologies like 5G, edge computing, and IoT is insatiable at the moment, with talks of how it can expedite a move towards smart cities, improved and more personalised customer experiences, and businesses utilising advanced and artificial intelligence. Much of this change can be attributed to the rise of cloud computing. But business leaders are often neglecting one of the most important questions – how am I ensuring the speed and quality of my data transfers between where it is gathered, processed, analysed, and stored? This aspect of any digital transformation initiative is key to a successful implementation that optimises your investments in these new technologies.
Let’s look at edge computing as an example – a term that can actually be quite misleading. When you say ‘edge’, you imagine a network that extends to the furthest boundaries of a coverage area, when in actual fact an edge networking device can be as close as the checkout counter of your supermarket.
The first mile of connectivity is the distance from an actual device – think point of sale (PoS) machines – to the actual ‘edge’ of an organisation’s network and its secure systems, usually housed in a data centre. Data normally travels this first mile over public internet infrastructure, instead of a private, secure network connection. This not only opens up gaps in security, but it also brings up quality-of-service concerns because routing over the internet can be unpredictable.
Most organisations are already using technologies such as SD-WAN to extend the edge of their private networks closer to these “edge” devices so that less data has to traverse a best-effort internet connection. However, this often comes with large costs and added complexity and can still leave data to cross vast suboptimal distances to get from the point of collection to its final destination.
One of the biggest issues with allowing data to travel a large distance over the public internet is security. Simply put, the longer data is out there over a vulnerable path, the longer it can be a target. It becomes vulnerable to DDoS attacks like route hijacking, which can have serious business implications.
Every organisation should be getting their apps and data onto private infrastructure as quickly as possible. That means actually bringing your network’s edge as close as possible to where data is being created or collected, minimising the time spent traversing the public internet and maximising the security.
SD-WAN provided the first step in this journey, creating reassurance for mission-critical data as organisations opened branches and expanded their footprint to better serve distributed workforces and applications during the COVID-19 pandemic.
