Edge Computing and Fog Computing are concepts that have revolutionized data processing in recent years, especially for its strong connection with the great masses of IoT devices that are already part of our daily lives, in homes and offices such as appliances. , security cameras or cloud-connected applications. ButWhat happens to all the information that these devices generate after using each of them?
Before delving into Edge and Fog Computing technologies, we need to start with how the data is processed without the use of this calculation.
Until now, all the information generated by our devices is stored and processed in large data centers or CPD. Despite this, these technologies are very expensive to maintain, mainly due to its high energy consumption, at the same time generating high latencies repeatedly when sending information to users; being hundreds or hundreds of kilometers from our location. And this is where Edge computing comes in., getting to fix this problem.
What is Edge Computing?
Edge Computing is a mesh network of micro data centers that brings the cloud closer to the user, processes and stores critical data locally and then sends all that data to a central data center or cloud storage warehouse.
To give us an idea of how edge computing can significantly reduce our latency, upload a file 1 Gb on Edge can be a 300% faster than uploading to the cloud.
Incredible true?
With this technology, the nodes or devices would become responsible for analyzing the data so that it would not need to be sent to a distant data center.
What other advantages does Edge Computing have?
The application of Edge computing technology will not only reduce the costs related to the energy consumption of data centers, but also has other great attributes such as security, privacy and quality of information, increasing the reliability of data processing.
in addition, Edge Computing has other great attributes related to IoT, such as compliance with regulatory requirements. In certain regions or business sectors, such as Europe where GDPR applies, Edge technology enables all this data to be managed, store and transmit locally with minimal latency.
Another of its main characteristics makes it compatible with the development of artificial intelligence applications for the optimization of its processes.. What does this mean?
You may have heard some examples of what smart cities could look like in the future. This time, Let's imagine that our vehicles that integrate IoT are capable of being activated to avoid an accident before it happens by going at a considerable speed; but how? Well, thanks to the use of data and transmission of information in real time between devices.
Despite this, so far we have only talked about Edge Computing as a micro data center and here we are looking at device level interaction, how is this feasible? Thanks to Fog Computing.
What is Fog Computing?
There is a concept that emerged from various institutions such as Microsoft, Cisco or Intel in which Fog Computing is established as an extension of the cloud to get closer to things as if it were a fog. Thus, any device with network connectivity, compute capacity and storage, would become a data processing node.
In other words, this technology covers network connections between Edge devices and the cloud itself. And how does this benefit data processing?? Well, do it mainly through this “cloud extension” the Fog Computing, is helping to further reduce energy consumption and latency that is generated by sending information remotely as we can find in 5G mobile technologies.
Edge Computing and 5G What is the link between them?
As we have already mentioned, the paradigm of data traffic processing in this new era in which hundreds of millions of IoT devices emit enormous amounts of information, needs systems that allow generating an immediate response latency, and this is where it also comes into play. 5g in game.
Among its great advantages, 5G is capable of transmitting information up to 1 millisecond, allowing the response times of the server to be brought closer to the “edge”, which makes it possible for this flow to be instantaneous. Despite this, this new network does not have this autonomy on its own, but it needs to be synchronized with Edge Computing technologies to fix the limitations between the decentralization of data processing with the devices themselves.
Therefore, we can envision an infinite range of possibilities for the future with the combination of Edge Computing with other AI application technologies, Machine Learning or even 5G for the future of our security, productivity and efficiency.
We hope that this post has enlightened you more about what Edge Computing is and its great advantages.. If you have any questions or would like to know how this technology can be put into practice in your organization, You can write to us and our team will present you with the solutions that best suit your needs.
