Product and Platform
Cloud
Enabling Enterprise Agility & Resilience with a Robust Cloud Strategy
Highlights
- In this era, a 5G-enabled platform with integrated cloud and edge compute capabilities is critical for business transformation.
- Unlike the past era of moving ‘everything to the cloud’, this platform provides enterprises with the flexibility to select compute that is best suited for different use cases based on business needs.
- The edge platform can deliver the high-performance, ultra-low latency solutions required for business transformation, without the concerns around security and integration between cloud compute and the different edge compute environments.
Edge compute
Get an edge with edge computing, a compute capability that is closer to the source of data.
When you accidentally touch a very hot surface, your reflex kicks in and without you even realizing it, an invisible force seems to push your hand out of harm’s way. Surprisingly, neither the heat stimuli nor the muscle contraction that moves the hand away are processed or planned by the brain. Reflexes are handled all along the spinal cord, closer to the source of the stimuli. This helps the body to reduce processing latency and quickly respond to sudden changes in the environment, keeping us safe.
Edge computing or local computing does something similar for organizations, allowing processing of data closer to the source of generation to avoid latency-related issues and drive quick response. This is different from cloud computing, which takes place far away from the source of data generated, potentially creating bottlenecks and inefficiencies when low-latency, faster responses are critical.
‘Cloud-out to edge’ offers a solution that brings the best of cloud and edge computing. It involves moving application processing to the edge from the central cloud to realize greater performance through lower latency, reduced data transfer cost, and compliance with privacy norms. While it helps meet a business’ need to run a compute disconnected from the cloud, it also allows some parts of an application to still run on the cloud.
Types of edge
Edge compute comes in many types.
An “enterprise edge” is a compute kept within an enterprise’s premises. A “network edge” moves computation away from an enterprise’s premises towards the edge of the internet. A “satellite edge” leverages the compute capabilities within the satellite itself rather than just moving the data to the data centers for processing. The type of edge to be used depends on the use case and the latency requirements associated with that use case. The latency-critical ones (such as computer vision) run at the “Enterprise Edge,” and the latency-sensitive use cases (such as supply chain tracking) run at the “Network Edge” or at the “Satellite Edge.” In contrast, latency-tolerant use cases (such as IT workloads like CRM) run on the “Cloud.”
5G network integration
The cloud and different edge computes are siloed unless integrated by a network.
The modern cloud and edge compute will expand to become a highly distributed compute fabric, leveraging 5G to integrate edge, cloud and space/satellite environments. This will result in modern compute infrastructure with 5G networks providing the glue across the different compute environments.
Future compute
Need for compute and network to drive business transformations.
A 5G-enabled, computing platform that provides integrated cloud and edge capabilities (including enterprise edge, network edge and satellite edge) can help deliver high performance and ultra-low latency solutions that accelerate business transformation. With a pre-integrated cloud-edge platform that provides the required security and interface capabilities across different computes, organizations can focus on developing distributed applications utilizing the cloud and the different edge computes which can solve the business transformation use cases.
Instead of moving ‘everything to the cloud’, enterprises would do well to go for a mix of cloud and edge environments, integrated on a 5G network. Such environment will provide them the flexibility to select compute that’s best suited for various use cases based on their business needs.
