CTO Straight Talk - Issue 4 - 12

The data processing capability offered

Scalability via edge analytics. It's easier

by nearby micro data centers processors

to manage large amounts of data from

" will be more efficient than building it

a large group of high-bandwidth IoT

into the edge device itself or having

sensors (such as video cameras) when

a data center that I have to own and

the raw data is analyzed at the edge.

operate, " says Triﬁro, of Vapor IO and

Only much smaller volumes of extracted

the LF Edge organization.

information and metadata need be
transmitted to the cloud; the rest can

THE POWER OF EDGE
COMPUTING

be stored at Tier 2 for potential later

Edge computing represents a sea

important data is from periods when a

change in the way companies handle

human face is visible. Edge computing

data. Satyanarayanan, the Carnegie

makes it possible to identify only

Mellon professor, describes four ways

segments of video including a human

that using micro data centers will be

face and process that for transmission

superior to sending data on a multi-hop

to the cloud, along with the relevant

journey across large geographic areas

metadata that alerts the person in the

via the Internet.

building that a known person is at the

use. A video doorbell, for example, has
to " watch " the door 24/7, but the only

door. At the same time, the micro data
Highly responsive cloud services. The

center can store the raw data for a

closer a cloudlet or micro data center

speciﬁed period in case someone needs

is to mobile devices, the more easily it

to review it later for something other

can process and deliver data to those

than a face - for example, whether a

devices for applications that require high

particular car was parked in front of the

bandwidth, low jitter, and latency of tens

building at certain times.

of milliseconds to function in real time -
for example, mobile VR/AR or wearable
cognitive assistance. For example, a
service technician working on a complex
piece of equipment may need to see a
diagram of the circuitry overlaid on the
item itself as she works, with directions
on how best to remove a broken
component and an instant warning if her
work comes dangerously close to a live
power cable.

2006

Th redundancy is critical not
This
just as temporary protection
against cyberattacks, but in
areas like military operations
or disaster recovery, where
networking infrastructure is
damaged or weak.

2009

Amazon introduces its Elastic Compute Cloud

The paper " The Case for VM-based Cloudlets in Mobile

(E
((EC2)
EC
C2 service, which creates new opportunities for

Computing " suggests that even cloud computing and CDNs

com
computing
mput
and storage but also proves that some

aren't enough to solve the looming bandwidth demands

situations
situ
si
tuation
ns still require local data processing for

of the emerging era of mobile computing. The paper

rreal-time decision-making.
re

introduces the concept of " cloudlets " for decentralized and

12

widely dispersed data processing.
CTO Straight Talk - Issue 4

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of CTO Straight Talk - Issue 4
