Edge Computing : The next Evolution of Cloud Computing

Edge Computing, as the name itself, is self-explanatory.  ‘Living on an edge’ can quite resemble Computer domain such as ‘Computing on the edge’. Edge computing is the method of enhancing and optimizing the cloud servers and systems to expand their data processing capability on the edges of the client network. The client network is supposed to reside nearby the source of data though.

To achieve Edge Computing, all you need is to have any resource such as a laptop, mobile phone, tablets and sensors constantly connected to the network. The areas covered by Edge Computing include WSN’s, Mobile data acquisition, Mobile signature analysis and other scientific streams. Pushing data and power services away from the centralized points to the logical extremes of the network can be a simple definition for Edge computing.

Others names for which Edge computing can be referred to are :

• Mesh Computing
• Grid Computing
• Peer-to-Peer(P2P) Computing
• Self-healing Computing

Some benefits of Edge Computing are listed below :

• Edge Computing decreases the volume of data being shifted on edges of network, resulting in less latency and improved QoS(Quality of Service)
• Discards the drawbacks of the Core Computing Environment
• Data is checked at the entry checkpoint gates of the core environment and when it passes through the firewalls
• Virtualization support which enables scalability

The only primary difference between Edge and Grid Computing is that Grid Computing can be hard-coded into a specific application of a dedicated grid of machine nodes.

—>Edge computing can also be called as the end result of combining two other computing technologies such as Mobile Computing and Cloud Computing.

Our next post on the same topic discusses the various Application Scenarios of Edge Computing.

For more details on Fog computing, you can refer to our other blog where you can obtain different research papers to gain deeper insight into the same. [Click here]