Edge Computing

Out at the edge, data items will get smaller, and tasks will often revolve around microservices locally processing small sets of these small data items together, at high speed, to generate appropriate-time status and change-of-state monitoring, and reports that are then acted upon locally. These will be performed by small, localised compute resources, increasingly incorporated inside the monitoring devices and/or housed in secure micro data centres. They will run operating systems specifically designed to work with cloud services, utilising applications dynamically loaded via containers and operating systems designed to work across widely distributed domains.

There will also be a shift away from general purpose processor chips to purpose-designed processing units. It will soon become difficult to tell the difference between a `processing sensor’ and a `sensing processor’, for that <function> `+processor’ model will become ubiquitous across limitless individual forms and applications requirements.

Edge Computing will radically change the role of some data centres away from the central position of it being the lynchpin holding everything together, towards becoming, mainly, the repository of the metadata of what is happening, and where it is happening across the business, plus the final results of much of the processing work carried out elsewhere. The `elsewhere’ will be widely dispersed around – indeed dissolved throughout – the global network where the work, physically or logically, is being done. It will be increasingly granular in nature, where the difference between a `sensor’ or `machine’ and a compute node will be increasingly difficult to tell and will, in effect, cease to be important.

With this dispersal of processing to the edge, customer-facing employees at the periphery will become more important, politically, and the influence of the IT organisation and the data centre may well decline.

Organisations will flatten. Reduced latency and increased responsiveness are likely to change usage patterns and this will require existing capacity management projections to be reviewed.

To make Edge Computing work at the scale envisaged, there will be on-going developments across distinct technology categories. These include secure, small footprint datacentres, new, small form factor servers and storage devices, edge cloud platforms to provide the agility, scalability and resilience of virtualised environments, SDN And NFV (Network Function Virtualisation) to enable the most effective use of networks and, above all else, high levels of automation to enable remote management and dark operations, i.e. without local IT operations staff.

According to a 2015 McKinsey Report IoT has a total potential economic impact of $3.9 trillion to $11.1 trillion a year by 2025. Early adopters have already moved to implement IoT projects and gain significant business benefits. While there seems to be some reluctance to share the actual financial returns, which may be holding back adoption by others seeking assurance, there is a growing body of evidence that points towards significant productivity gains. Hand and Power Tool manufacturer, Stanley Black & Decker reported a 10% increase in staff productivity on a project to fully connect a production line with IoT sensors, RFID tags and wireless networks. European retailer, C&A implemented IoT sensors in their stores and logistics centre to monitor and control energy usage. They achieved 20% savings in their stores and 35% in their logistics centre. The logistics centre savings alone contributed €50,000 per annum to their bottom line. ISS, one of the world’s leading facility services companies uses internet connected boxes in their UK based vehicles to monitor and control driver behaviour and productivity in real-time. This ensures compliance with government regulations on usage and has resulted in a 36% reduction in overtime payments.

There isn’t an industry immune to the impact of IoT. From Connected Cows delivering step change improvements in insemination productivity, to JCB’s Livelink connected equipment programme that delivers 95% uptime on construction equipment through early problem detection and more effective planned maintenance, through to health monitoring for the elderly at home that reduces unplanned hospital admissions, IoT projects are already delivering significant benefits and bringing forth new business models.

What next?

Business leaders need to actively investigate how IoT can help deliver a step change in productivity and open up new business opportunities. Don’t wait, run IoT pilot projects now that can take advantage of existing data processing, data storage, wireless and mobile network capabilities.

At the same time consideration will have to be given to what data is held, where and for how long, the scale and nature of data processing required and implications for wireless bandwidth, coverage, density and latency. Business CIOs and CTOs need to be working with mobile network and wireless equipment vendors to upgrade existing wireless networks and ensure they can take advantage of emerging 5g network capabilities. Software defined networking (SDN) is an essential element of these developments and CIOs and CTOs should be ensuring that NFV is built into any network upgrades.

At the same time a review of data centre strategy will be needed that reflects the need for increased high-performance compute requirements for machine leaning and big data analytics and the strong likelihood of the need to provision significant data processing at the network edge.

Revolutions are by their nature disruptive. They create winners and losers. Businesses need to be implementing Edge Computing capabilities that will support the rapidly increasing number of IoT

devices and deliver enhanced data analytics and automation at the edge, wherever that might be, to win in the 4th Industrial Revolution.

What is the bottom line? The implementation of Edge computing that supports the needs of IoT and other edge functionality, is fundamental to unlocking the revenue growth and costs savings promised by Industry 4.0.

Most of the major IT companies such as IBM, HPE, VMWare, Dell and Cisco have a strategic focus on, and offerings in, Edge Computing. Importantly, they all have significant integration and implementation capabilities which will be a key requirement for widespread enterprise adoption

IoT PaaS (platform as-a-servce) vendors will have a major impact on market development. Some, like Siemens and PTC Thingworks have an OT (Operational Technology) heritage. There are newer companies who are IoT (Internet of Things) natives, such as Particle and Thingstream. And it is interesting to note other widely differing vendors like Software AG and AWS also coming to market with solutions.

Telcos clearly have strong interest in edge computing and a key role to play. Major telcos such as Vodafone, Telefonica and T-Mobile stress their enterprise solutions alongside their more visible consumer based, public edge, initiatives.

Given the complexity and challenges of new edge networking requirements, vendors, including Cloud Gateway, Cato Networks, Cloudflare, Netscope and Palo Alto Networks are offering SASE compliant platforms.

We shouldn’t forget the whole raft of startups that are targeting specific areas where new solutions will have a place, such as new, `lite’ operating systems, capable of operation across a wide range of different hardware (especially relevant to Industry 4.0 where there is widespread use of sensors etc. built to many incompatible proprietary standards.

Finally, for now, there needs to be a continuing focus on the underlying physical infrastructure. Some of the more far-sighted data centre infostructure vendors like Schneider Electric have a very sophisticated view of, and well-developed product, like modular micro-datacentres, for the Edge Computing market. Similarly, there are vendors of date centre space and power, like EdgeConneX and vapor.io developing very specific and innovative edge offerings.