What Is Edge Computing and why does it matter? Explained in simple terms.

Hello and welcome back to yet another blog, and today we will dive into the world of Edge Computing. In the last few years, data from millions of computers or other machines are being handled, processed, and delivered through Edge Computing globally. Edge computing is most commonly used for the Internet of Things (IoT), Real-Time Computing, etc. In the era of fast networking technology, the use of edge computing is essential for the creation and operation of real-time applications. These applications include video processing and analytics, automated cars, robotics, Artificial Intelligence- AI.

What is Cloud Computing?

To understand Edge Computing, we need to understand Cloud Computing. We are currently going through the era of cloud computing where most people use cloud computing in some way or the other.

Under cloud computing, when a user is editing online tasks, he or she accesses information from a remote data center called cloud. For example, online video or photo editing software, antivirus application, online file converter, e-commerce application, data backup, and recovery, etc. work under cloud computing.

These data centers (cloud) are located at a few locations around the world where data is stored and processed. Most of the world's data centers are operated by major technology companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.

In cloud computing, our information, and data are not stored on any local hard disk or memory card, but it is preserved in the online cloud. We only need an internet connection to access this type of data.

Cloud computing includes cloud storage in which a person can keep his personal information and data such as photos, videos, music, documents, etc..., secure. Google Drive (DropBox), iCloud (iCloud), etc., are applications that provide cloud storage facilities.

Apart from this, there are many problems in cloud computing which are as follows:

Latency: Latency is the delay in real-time contacting a remotely located data center or cloud.

Insufficient bandwidth: In companies where data is transmitted to cloud storage by multiple devices simultaneously, there is a lot of pressure on a fixed bandwidth and because of this, they have to pay a huge price.

High-Speed Internet Connection: The main problem of cloud computing is its dependence on high-speed Internet Connection. The availability of high-speed Internet is required to access data from a remotely located cloud.

What is Edge Computing?

Edge computing is made up of two words, in which Edge means ‘edge’ and Computing means computation. Unlike cloud computing, under computing, data collection is done near devices for computing purposes.

In other words, it is a new networking system under which data sources/servers and data processing is brought closer to the computing process to reduce latency and bandwidth problems and increase the capacity of an application.

In contrast, the source of data in cloud computing can be located thousands of kilometers away from the machine.

Under edge computing, data servers are stored locally, and the data is stored and processed locally, and only the required data is sent to the remote cloud. This reduces latency, while also not putting additional pressure on bandwidth.

Edge computing has been developed considering the increasing use of IoT based machines. These machines rely on the Internet for receiving or transmitting data from the cloud. Most of these generate excessive amounts of data during their implementation.

For example, Edge Computing can be useful where a device or camera installed in a factory is transmitting data to a remote office. Because it is easier to transmit data from a single device, but if multiple devices are transmitting data simultaneously at a time, it not only affects the quality of the transmitted data but also causes latency problems and the bandwidth used. The price is also very high. These problems can be solved by processing and storing data locally by edge computing.

These edge devices may include various machines such as IoT sensors, laptops, smartphones, CCTV cameras, internet-operated microwave ovens or toasters, etc.

Benefits of edge computing:

For many companies, the use of cloud computing proves to be costly because its cost is increased due to an excessive amount of data collection and use of bandwidth. Edge computing may be a better option in this case.

The most advantage of edge computing is that it can do the processing and collection of data faster thus increasing the efficiency of the real-time application required by the user.

For example, a person's facial recognition smartphone uses a cloud-based service for the Facial Recognition Algorithm under cloud computing that takes a longer time. But with the use of edge computing, that smartphone can identify the person present in itself or using a local edge server without delaying using that algorithm.

The use of edge computing will help in ambitious projects like Self-Driving Cars, Automated Building System, and Smart City.

To promote edge computing, many companies are building smaller chip-sized edge devices and modules that can be used in drones, robots, or other medical devices, given the increasing demand for AI.

Using these, these machines will not require any cloud for data processing, rather data can be processed and stored locally through these edge devices.

After the introduction of 5G technology in the mobile sector, it is anticipated that this will accelerate the field of edge computing and provide an environment conducive for automation, AI, real-time processing.

Potential Challenges in Edge Computing:

Doubts are being raised on the reliability of Edge Computing for data security. Due to different data collection in different machines, it is considered to be less secure than a centralized or cloud-based system. For example, the responsibility of data security in cloud computing is mainly from companies such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, etc., whose reliability is high.

Apart from this, the need for energy, power, and network connectivity required for data processing in different devices, etc. are the main challenges before it.

Conclusion

So, this was all about Edge computing, where we install the software on a normal personal computer, we only use it in edge computing. This means that in edge computing the data is controlled not by the user but with the edge device, which can be questionable for its privacy and security. I hope you enjoyed reading this and liked the article. Do follow us on our social media platforms.