At the edge of digital innovation

Why edge computing?

Optimal for data that is gigantic, noisy, and expensive to route

The core drawbacks of the cloud are low availability and long response times, which form the premise for edge computing. Edge computing shifts computing resources to the location of data creation, or the edge of the internet, to lead to real-time speeds, high availability, flexibility and resiliency, and improved data consistency.

Dave McCarthy, research vice-president for cloud and edge infrastructure services at IDC, points out the shift in mindset from “anything and everything should go to the cloud, to ‘Let’s use the cloud for what it’s good for, and use other things when they make more sense.’”

Gartner believes that the surge in edge computing and data management is driven by three distinct components: the end-user, the networking layer, and the computing place. The emerging edge and cloud infrastructure need a distributed network that optimizes latency and bandwidth consumption while staying reliable and secure.

Unique workload and data characteristics are pushing processing to the edge, such as the small window of opportunity when decision-making is critical and latency should be minimized, when the data is gigantic, noisy, and expensive to route, when interactions are confidential or regulated and when the processing must continue even if the connection is weak.

For instance, human-centered experiences will form the core of the retail industry. A hiccup-free store checkout could be one of the leading use cases of edge in retail. On-site cameras use AI to recognize inventory items, an edge network processes them, and customers can walk past a kiosk that charges their accounts and renders ‘waiting in line’ a thing of the past.

Edge computing alongside 5G technology will address bandwidth, security, and speed issues for networks with sudden traffic surges. The time is ripe for edge computing to realize commercially as organizations look at faster moving data and heightened infrastructure expectations to fulfill customer demands.

What's next

The impact of edge computing could be profound on innovation, productivity, and user experience.

The worldwide enterprise and service provider spending on edge software, hardware, and servers is expected to hit $176 billion in 2022, a 14.8% increase from 2021 and is anticipated to reach $274 billion by 2025.

Gartner predicts that 75% of enterprise-generated data will be created and processed outside the traditional settings of cloud or data centers by 2025. According to Santhosh Rao, senior research director at Gartner, “As the volume and velocity of data increases, so does the inefficiency of streaming all this information to a cloud or data center for processing.”

According to Market Research Future, the global edge computing market will reach $168.59 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 24.51% between 2020 and 2030.

“Edge computing is broad enough to support many submarkets, but it will evolve from supporting thousands of custom patterns to merely dozens, with cloud providers taking an important role to the edge or complementing edge solutions. Enterprises must prioritize a distributed cloud-based solution as default and future-proof edge solutions by relying on partnerships and ecosystems over a single-vendor approach,” says John McArthur, senior director analyst at Gartner.

The impact of edge computing could be profound on innovation, productivity, and user experience.