The Internet of Things promises a digital transformation in all the aspects of our modern life that is from changing the temperature of a thermostat at home or waiting at an IoT-enabled traffic light,we find it almost everywhere. Connected sensors and the data they generate promise a set of experiences that were largely the stuff of science fiction a decade ago.
According to Cisco’s forecast, there will be 850 ZB of data generated by mobile users and IoT devices by 2021. With increasing volume, several challenges like latency surface with regard to centralized cloud deployments will emerge. For real-time applications, the functioning should be more local, and that is where edge devices and edge computing comes into the picture.
An edge device is any piece of hardware that controls data flow at the boundary. between two networks. Mobile phones, IoT devices, and embedded devices that request services from edge servers are called edge devices.
Edge devices fulfill a variety of roles, depending on what type of device they are, but they essentially play as network entry (or exit) points. Some of common tasks of edge devices are the transmission, routing, processing, monitoring, filtering, translation and storage of data at the edge of the network.
Now according to Cisco’s forecast,the vast amount of data generated needs to be processed in a very short time ,that is to have a faster response time and lower latency.
In edge computing, the massive data generated by different types of IoT devices can be processed at the network edge instead of transmitting them to the centralized cloud infrastructure owing to bandwidth and energy consumption concerns.
So,the data will be analysed data locally, the data will be taken closer to where it is stored in real time. Rather than sending it far away to a centralized data centre.
The best way to visualize edge computing architecture is to think of it as a three-tier architecture as shown in the below diagram.The first tier is the local devices and applications; the second tier is the edge layer, and finally the public cloud as the third tier .
So basically the Edge computing is tapped for the following advantages, Low latency,Low energy consumption,Scalability, and Security/Privacy.
Popular hardware components for edge also include industrial sensors, Raspberry Pi, gateways, microchips, collaborative robots, self-driving vehicles, drones and unmanned aerial vehicles.
Edge devices will proliferate with the availability of billions of smartphones and increasing 5G users. Smartphones and 5G bases are part of the edge.With the proliferation of 5G smartphones, combined with the demand for privacy, the ecosystem is ripe for edge devices to flourish and transform the way we interact with digital information.
Prof. Sunaya.Shirodkar
Asst Professor, S.R.I.E.I.T
