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Edge computing has gained in popularity for several good reasons. So, lets take a look and see where it might fit in your organization.

Technology moves at a breakneck pace, and at certain times, several elements merge, empowering businesses to use their computers in new and more sophisticated, more efficient ways. Such a change is now taking place with the emergence of edge computing.

Historically, businesses employed Information Technology (IT) professionals who bought, installed, and maintained computer hardware, software, and networking equipment. Public cloud computing became popular because vendors, like SAP, took on infrastructure installation and maintenance. Edge is a third system deployment option. In this distributed computing model, some processing occurs near the physical location where data are created rather than on a data center server or in the cloud.

Traditionally, computer processing power has gotten smaller, moving from large mainframe systems to PCs and smartphones. Edge is the next iteration on that theme, usually relying on intelligent sensors, dubbed the Internet of Things (IoT) devices. These products generate, collect, and correlate data increasingly in near real-time. Because these devices place intelligence in new locations, they offer corporations new capabilities, ranging from monitoring a persons heart rate to measuring the wear and tear on a factory floor conveyor belt.

Due to the emergence of technology, the volume of data collected by companies is growing at a mind-boggling rate. 55.7 billion connected IoT devices will generate 73.1 zettabytes (ZB, a zettabyte is 1 trillion gigabytes) of data by 2025, up from 18.3 ZB in 2019, according to International Data Corp. (IDC).

As data volumes grow, new challenges arise. Moving all of the information from the source to the destination involves adding a great deal of bandwidth and processing power to enterprise networks. Edge does some (most in some instances) of the processing close to the origination point and sends only consolidated data to the data center.

Many emerging applications could benefit from this design, like autonomous cars, augmented or virtual reality, industrial automation, predictive maintenance, and video monitoring. Because of these benefits, the edges future appears bright. In 2018, only 10 percent of corporate data were created outside of legacy systems or the cloud, but in 2025, about 75 percent of all data will be built at the edge, according to Gartner.

Computer technology is constantly evolving. Cloud has become an increasingly popular alternative to legacy computing. Edge offers companies a new variation on computing deployment models, one that fits many emerging applications and seems destined to become an essential element in building enterprise systems.

Original post:
Edge Emerges As Third Computing Option - e3zine.com