Intelligent CIO Europe Issue 12 | Page 38

EDITOR’S QUESTION ///////////////// “ USERS SHOULDN’T BE AWARE OF WHETHER IT IS EDGE OR CLOUD COMPUTING THEY ARE ACCESSING – THEY SHOULD JUST HAVE AN AMAZING USER EXPERIENCE. A lot of people think of edge computing as anything that is IoT-focused. In fact, anything that is not cloud is edge computing. That means any smart device – laptops, smartphones, tablets, computers. At New Signature, we refer to anything that has some local processing power as edge. doing all the analytics as previously. We have smart devices that are also extremely powerful. What we need is for the technology to work symbiotically, so it is the right technology doing the most appropriate analysis and processing. It should not matter whether it is edge or cloud that is enabling this to happen. Times have changed but there is still a similarity with where we were with technology 10 years ago. Back then, the focus was on client/ server, where we held some information on a centralised device and client devices that fed into this. As technology has evolved, we have more intelligent devices and a more powerful core in the cloud. Specific applications have been developed to ensure that cloud and smart devices work together more effectively. Traditionally, the cloud has been the backbone of a technology offering with devices syncing, backing up and using a local cache. With the emergence of IOT and smart devices, the cloud is becoming an orchestrator of the technology, especially as more edge devices are collecting and processing data in real time. As these devices get more sophisticated, we are seeing more power at the edge which is really exciting. Currently, we are taking this data and still handling the analysis centrally, but this won’t be the case for long. One of our considerations is how we can collect the data from the edge device more efficiently. Client/server has morphed into intelligent edge and intelligent cloud with all applications requiring some central power and distributed power. What’s important about this is that users shouldn’t be aware of whether it is edge or cloud computing they are accessing – they should just have an amazing user experience. The challenge is how we streamline the link between edge and cloud computing further. It is no longer the case of the cloud 38 INTELLIGENTCIO The relationship between edge and cloud is constantly changing but as smart devices get more powerful and do the jobs that have previously been the responsibility of the cloud, the real challenge is whether the cloud can grow quickly enough to keep up. www.intelligentcio.com