EDGE COMPUTING: A FUTURIST TAKE

Over 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are currently generated each day, a number that only continues to grow as organizations rush to embrace digital transformation in the wake of COVID-19 and ongoing economic disruption. Luckily, edge computing – which promises to bring computer processing and data storage several steps closer to end-users’ devices – is helping working professionals and leading firms in every field more effectively juggle this ever-growing mountain of information… and leverage it to stay one step ahead of the curve. Serving to minimize lag and latency, and allowing for speedier processing of information, advancements in the space continue to power a raft of increasingly sophisticated online apps and new high-tech innovations. But at the same time as they are helping a rising number of enterprises bridge the gap between on-site and remote operations, it bears reminding. New developments in edge computing are also introducing new and novel challenges for organizations unused to working at cloud-level scale.

Case in point: Rising concerns related to cybersecurity, and the growing amount of digital territory that enterprises (who are increasingly shifting operations to virtualized and online environments) are now being asked to defend. In other words, while edge computing can help improve speed, uptime, and reliability, and provides a readymade means through which to cost-effectively scale, it can also introduce numerous added online touchpoints and interactions that are vulnerable to digital attack. Likewise, many firms may find that migrating legacy computer networks and IT systems to an edge infrastructure (at least at first) has the potential to be a costly and complex process. In addition, at odds with a centralized computing architecture, edge computing functions in the form of a distributed system which can bring with it added maintenance and upkeep concerns. But once a business has migrated to an edge computing system, its advantages – especially with regard to the timely and reliable sharing, retrieval, and storage of online content – can quickly become apparent.

True – there may be some initial growing pains as your business looks to make the leap to edge computing solutions. But any short-term expenses and difficulties here are often greatly overshadowed by the many advantages that this technology presents. Given enterprises’ skyrocketing needs when it comes to the management, upkeep, and usage of data in a world where worksites and working professionals are becoming increasingly distributed? Edge computing’s influence and impact is only expected to grow and expand from here.