EDGE COMPUTING
"We estimate that only 10% of IoT applications and their
supporting workloads require a physical presence at the
edge. The remaining 90% can be sufficiently served from
the existing metropolitan data centre and co-location
facilities"
By Val Walsh, Senior Vice
President Portfolio and
Commercial Management,
Digital Realty
www.digitalrealty.co.uk
Ensuring faster processing times
with reduced latency in the age of
5G and the Internet of Things
As the hype around the Internet of Things (IoT) starts to
become a reality, 2019 looks set to be the year of ‘the edge’
for telecoms and data centre networks, as it makes its way
into enterprise IT strategies.
Industry talk points to several technological trends and
developments driving this transition and adoption of the
edge. One of these will be artificial intelligence (AI), which is
gradually being adopted by businesses across the world and
demands more compute with faster access, making edge an
obvious solution. Additionally, 5G will become an operational
reality towards the end of the year, further fuelling the need
for rapid data transport and processing.
As organisations continue to adopt IoT, it will require
massive amounts of data to run its application – from the
processing of vast quantities of sensors that are fed into
machine learning (ML) and AI platforms for actionable
intelligence. The general consensus is that all of the above will
move compute closer to where it will ultimately be used so
decisions can be made faster and from across the globe.
Thinking local
It’s true that these new technologies are creating new
demands for how we process data. However, we believe that
talk of completely re-engineering data infrastructure around
new micro data centres at the edge underestimates both the
intelligence of devices and the capabilities of our existing
infrastructure. In fact, the future of these new technologies
is split-second decision-making at the device itself – whether
on a computer in Paris, a mobile phone in Berlin, or in a Tesla
on the motorway to Newcastle – where there’s no risk from
latency or interruption.
www.networkseuropemagazine.com
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