Back in 2009, there was an enterprise technology with a lot of promise. But adoption, marred by questions about security and reliability, lagged. That technology – cloud computing – is now a $600 billion market. Edge computing technology has followed a similar trajectory to the cloud. It, too, was met with early cynicism and slow adoption early on, and yet the market is now forecasted to eclipse $101 billion by 2027. The adoption of edge computing has skyrocketed in recent years as digital transformation initiatives have proliferated in nearly every organization. The reliability, security, and performance edge computing offers make it an undeniable platform for mission-critical processes. Now, many enterprises see edge computing as a complement to the cloud and are adopting an edge-to-cloud approach. Read on to learn why.
Benefits of Edge Computing: Real-Time Decision Processing and Increased Reliability and Security
Business demand for real-time data and analytics has skyrocketed. This demand has also ushered in more stringent requirements and expectations among organizations for system reliability – expectations that there is 100% system uptime with no data loss.
To ensure those expectations are met, businesses are adopting platforms that process and analyze data right where it is generated: at the edge. Performing this automated decision-making as closely as possible to the process itself enables businesses to get real-time value in critical data, without the latency associated with storing the information in a physical data center or the cloud and having to move it back and forth.
Edge computing platforms are also extremely reliable and secure. With edge platforms, organizations have complete control over their hardware, software, configuration, interfaces, and data, and internet and third-party dependencies are eliminated. It is an incredibly stable technology that rarely suffers from outages and typically provides the highest possible overall compute availability – especially when redundant, fault-tolerant computing solutions are used. Edge platforms deliver a superior level of availability that can withstand both hardware and software failures by either proactively monitoring and preventing critical systems from failing in the first place, or by completely mitigating the risk of a catastrophic component or system failure.
Benefits of Cloud Computing: Scalable and Cost-Effective
That’s not to say that cloud computing doesn’t have its own advantages too. Scalability and flexibility are hallmarks of the cloud, enabling organizations to easily increase or decrease IT resources needed to meet changing demand. The cloud is also quite effective at storing and processing big data, as processing resources aren’t limited to any physical, on-premise hardware and because large quantities of data can be stored and accessed easily via data lakes.
Last, but certainly not least, the cloud is typically a cost-effective option. Adopting the cloud doesn’t require investing up-front in expensive server equipment and spending a lot of time on setup and maintenance. Cloud platforms also typically offer a pay-as-you-go system – meaning, companies pay only for features and storage space needed.
Benefits of an Edge-to-Cloud Approach: Applying the Right Solution to the Right Problem
As with any digital transformation initiative, it’s critical for IT leaders to first focus on the business task at hand – the business problem they’re solving – instead of leading with the tactics of where to deploy data and applications. Leaders need to consider their computing requirements as it relates to cost, security, latency demands, and scalability – and from there, apply the right computing solution.
When used in tandem, edge and cloud computing offer powerful benefits for organizations. An edge-to-cloud approach can create ultimate efficiency for an organization if each technology is used to its own strengths. Edge extends the benefits afforded by the cloud, and an edge-to-cloud approach optimizes the flow of data, which ultimately maximizes operating costs.
Here are three major benefits of adopting an edge-to-cloud mindset:
- Faster reaction times to business trends and events: Typically, edge data is fairly siloed and not often shared between disconnected sites. In those instances, optimizing production between sites that are doing the same thing may be hard. Aggregating production data (or even other edge data, such as security information) in the cloud can automate decision-making processes, or at least alert decision-makers to positive or negative business events.
- Reduced costs: The one universal tenet of the edge vs. cloud debate is where to store data. And an “all or nothing” approach to cloud or edge will not be efficient. For example, an onsite operator may need to poll machines at a much higher frequency than someone doing business analytics across many machines. Additionally, on-demand assets in the cloud can cost more over time if the data is not managed appropriately. Lastly, IT systems management is much less costly when software updates can be delivered remotely.
- Increased flexibility: Having a connection to the cloud may be a good way to reduce the edge footprint in a site that does not have a lot of requirements. Previous technology architectures benefitted from a consistent stack of infrastructure. But new operational requirements or even cross-company collaboration may render that approach too heavy. Deploying services and applications in a more modular way allows for different sites to get exactly what they need vs. the one-size-fits-all standard.
The conversation is no longer about edge vs. cloud. While each approach can certainly be effective on its own, savvy IT leaders are using a “best of both worlds” hybrid approach that deploys both edge and cloud solutions in concert, combining the strengths of both computing approaches.