Intelligent CIO Europe Issue 12 | Page 37

+ EDITOR’S QUESTION DONNA JOHNSON, VP PRODUCT AND SOLUTIONS MARKETING AT CRADLEPOINT ///////////////// M ost businesses are anticipating the fruition of several extraordinary technologies being crafted over the next few years – technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and 5G. Edge computing will be central to the widespread success of these technologies. It will help organisations intelligently manage their network edge, ultimately helping the evolution of IoT, AI and 5G in the future. As more devices are connected to the cloud – and IoT systems progress in a ‘ready-or-not, here we come’ fashion – edge computing will soon become a well-known practice. Defining the edge To understand how edge computing will impact the enterprise, it’s important to first define where the edge is located. An enterprise might define the edge as the remote setting where the end-user or IoT device is installed, whereas a mobile network operator might define the edge slightly differently – as anything not in the data centre. The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) uses the term Multi Access Edge Computing (MEC) to describe edge computing. Network operators across the world are starting to deploy MEC within their networks, starting at the Radio Access Network (RAN) and then being deployed closer to the core of the network, based on the use case. Edge computing benefits Edge computing co-locates computing, storage and networking functions closer to where the data originates. All edge devices – routers, sensors, smart devices and much more – can do edge computing. This reduces the amount of data being sent back and forth between devices and the cloud, saving time and power, conserving bandwidth and www.intelligentcio.com reducing latency. Edge computing will provide additional security for safer transactions, as well as rapid and cost-effective scaling under a common infrastructure. cameras that identify open parking spaces. With edge computing capabilities, these will only need to transmit meta data, instead of the whole video stream. This is important because storing data in the cloud is no longer a huge cost saving exercise for businesses. For example, it can cost nearly US$4,000 per petabyte for long- term cloud storage and nearly 10 times that amount for real-time access storage. With edge computing, applications can send less data to the cloud, instead processing more at the edge. A smart city parking solution, for example, might be connected to video Because edge computing is a horizontal architecture, it can support multiple industries. 451 Research identifies utilities, transportation, healthcare and the industrial sectors as the largest markets for edge computing. It is on track to pick up speed and will play a crucial role in IoT, AI, 5G and other advanced and connected systems, guaranteeing the connection of ‘cloud-to-things’ success and driving future business value. INTELLIGENTCIO 37