Where is the Edge of the Edge of Industrial IoT?
Ariel curiously asks “Where is the Edge of the
Edge of the sea” in Disney’s Little Mermaid
as she explores her underwater world in a
quest to learn about the unknown. 1 Just as
she swims in a sea of adventure, we will soon
swim in a sea of information from data,
sensors, analytics and Industrial IoT if analyst
predictions of 25-50bn devices by 2020 are
true. 2 Sadly, we process less than 0.5% 3 of
the data we currently have and this sea of
new information will continue to be
underutilized if we don’t leverage more
extensive analytics to make sense of it.
formulating a formal definition for Edge and
Edge Computing as there are many (and
often conflicting) views of what the Edge is.
The current working definitions from this
Task Group are:
Edge: a logical layer consisting of the IoT
devices, sensors, actuators, nodes,
gateways and components of the
functional domains deployed therein.
Edge Computing:
All computation,
storage, communications, and processing
associated with collecting, transforming
and acting upon information captured
from the Edge, or transmitted to the Edge.
IoT and more specifically, Industrial IoT
(IIoT), promises to enable us to respond
faster with better business outcomes
provided we can effectively process the
information. Being effective means
“adequate to accomplish a purpose,
producing the intended or expected result”.
4 Effectively processing IIoT data to achieve a
specific business outcome requires the
processing to happen at the point in the
system architecture where it will deliver the
expected result with a high level of certainty.
As the Edge is defined as a logical layer
rather than a specific physical divide, it is
often open to individual opinion and
interpretation on “where” it is. “Does it
include the cloud or is limited to local
deployment” is an example of the types of
questions organizations such as the IIC and
standards bodies such as OMG seek to
resolve.
The IIC’s Industrial Internet Reference
Architecture (IIRA) outlines four different
viewpoints that provide excellent guidance
for determining where the Edge is. These
viewpoints are:
As devices, sensors, gateways and other IIoT
hardware components increase computing
power, the point of processing moves along
a continuum that is most often referred to as
the Edge.
The Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) Edge
Computing Task Group is currently
1 http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/The_Edge_of_the_Edge_of_the_Sea
2 http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2905717
3
Business viewpoint
Usage viewpoint
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2015/09/30/big-data-20-mind-boggling-facts-everyone-must-
read/#380c419717b1
4
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/effective
IIC Journal of Innovation
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