From high-street retailers identifying in-store traffic patterns, to autonomous vehicles interpreting their environment as they zip along, the effects of edge computing can be seen everywhere.
The technology has been doing the rounds since the 1990s, though to date, it has been used mainly to manage data for cloud systems. However, modern developments have given edge systems the storage and analytical power to act on the data they harbour at a machine's location, allowing the technology to actually compete with the cloud, rather than just help support it.
The latest estimates report that 75% of enterprise data is expected to be processed on the edge by 2020. These figures may continue to rise for a while yet because of the altering landscape of the internet.
The internet is what we want it to be. It is moulded to the shape of our desires. And our desires are faster speeds, higher definition, and more screens to view it all on. The move towards bandwidth-intensive content and an increasing number of 'things' is allowing edge computing to take centre-stage across a breadth of industries, with a number of fruitful benefits enjoyed as a result.
The most widely experienced benefit of edge computing is its ability to increase network performance by reducing latency. Since IoT edge devices process data locally or in micro data centres, the information they collect and distribute doesn't have to travel anywhere near the same distances as it would with cloud architecture.
The 'edge' refers to the location where users and their devices meet. It's a distributed platform that extends are far as possible towards the customer, cutting distances and, subsequently, the time it takes for them to be served, achieving higher bandwidth. All this goes some way to making data travel faster, meaning higher speeds for end-users.
Theoretically, the shifting of processing to the periphery combined with the distributed computing infrastructure deployed by edge computing vastly increases the surface area of applications vulnerable to cyberattack. However in practice, the dispersed infrastructure actually reduces the amount of data at risk at any one time. Data is protected on local drives before being transferred back to the micro data centre.Â
In this, it can be said that processing data without using a public cloud provides an added layer of security.
