Intelligent Data Centres Issue 06 | Page 41

EXPERT OPINION computer or server, which reduces costs and ensures that applications can be used effectively in remote locations. While some data will always need to be processed in an actual data centre, businesses can minimise Internet bandwidth usage and boost performance and reliability by incorporating Edge locations. A growing need for Edge computing While Edge computing is not necessarily new – remote working and branch offices have been a core aspect of business practices for years and require computing in multiple locations – we are seeing a major increase in the Edge data centre market because of the dramatic increase in device usage and subsequent data generation. It’s anticipated that there www.intelligentdatacentres.com will be nearly 30.73 billion IoT connected devices by 2020. Edge computing is ideal for IoT for several reasons: The fact that the data is processed much closer to the source means that latency between devices and data processing layers is reduced, which translates to faster response and improved decision making. Costs are also reduced as less data is required to be processed in the cloud and network capacity for other workloads increases. Because Edge computing enables the data to be localised, if a device does fail there is no ripple effect on other devices. WHEN PLANNING, ORGANISATIONS NEED TO ASK THEMSELVES WHERE THEY ARE NOW, WHERE THEY WILL BE IN FIVE YEARS AND WHAT WILL THEY DO TO ENABLE CHANGE? Keeping the data locally also helps to heighten security and compliance Issue 06 41