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Edge Computing has been around for a while and as technology evolved and connectivity improved dramatically , we ’ ve seen use cases and applications in almost every aspect of human life . Distributed Edge Computing is one of the areas where we are seeing accelerated development . Distributed Edge Computing , which is essentially a computing paradigm that brings computation and data storage closer to the location where it is needed to improve response times and save bandwidth , has many guises – the Internet of Things ( IoT ), IT / OT convergence etc . – but in its purest form , it ’ s about how technology can be automated to improve human life . Sensors in the fields that help farmers keep track of the health of their crops , self-driving machines that work 24 / 7 on mining sites , automated factories that operate round the clock with minimal human supervision , little drones that surgeons can send into your body . The applications are limited only by our imagination .
The Gartner Hype Cycle is of the opinion that Edge Computing is approaching the peak of inflated expectation , but I would argue that this is the next important step for technology development and with accelerated rollouts of 5G all around the world , we ’ re going to see Edge Computing really coming of age this year .
All transformational technologies take place in waves and what we ’ re seeing this year is the convergence of some really big waves coming together . Arguably , the biggest catalyst is the global pandemic . From a technology perspective , it has led to the biggest shift towards digitalization that the world has ever seen . Whole industries have been disrupted as businesses race to implement technology that will enable them to survive . We will look back on the past year as a milestone in humanity ’ s Digital Transformation .
What this means for infrastructure
What does the CIO or CTO need to think about in order to build IT for their enterprises that can take advantage
of distributed Edge Computing . For one , this will create a deluge of data unseen in human history . Where will we store this data ? How will we move it ? How do we figure out what ’ s important ?
IDC projects that IoT devices alone will generate almost 80ZB of data by 2025 , yes Zettabytes . I believe this is only the tip of the iceberg .
Edge Computing will cause a serious rethink about how we architect our data centers . Data centers will need to be physically closer to users and support processing , and decision support applications closer to where the data is generated . Furthermore , these data centers need to be designed to accommodate huge amounts of unstructured data at high speed and will need to be built on cloud-native technologies such as containers and to support a much wider variety of application needs .
James Petter , International VP , Pure Storage
IDC projects that IoT devices alone will generate almost 80ZB of data by 2025 .
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