Comparative Study of Edge Computing

Only recently, the term “cloud computing” had entered the modern human’s everyday use, when suddenly, more advanced types of data processing and analysis began to appear. In particular, edge computing is logical to apply to the situation when it is unreasonable to transfer an array of information to processing centers or to upload it to cloud storage. For example, analysis of road surfaces in autopilot vehicles, local robot control, or video data analysis is more straightforward if sending data to servers is replaces with local analysis. In other words, edge computing significantly reduces the cost of implementing communication channels, servers, and storage volumes.

It is easy to see that the trend towards edge computing is a direct consequence of the exponential growth of IoT devices. An infinite number of smartphones, electronic sensors, smart devices for home, cars, and camcorders could not help but use massive cloud storage, and edge computing has become a type of descendant of IoT. IoT involves connecting different devices through data centers, but the edge ecosystem creates the opposite situation — devices exchange data, update programs, and run analytics services themselves (Ghosh, 2018). As a result, the load associated with data processing is significantly reduced, and channels are freed up.

Another component of global connectivity is IoE, a technology that interconnects the physical elements of IoT. Obviously, IoE, as an add-on for IoT, must have many times the resources for data processing (Karl, 2018). Since edge computing makes it possible to simplify the analysis of the collected information and provide device autonomy, IoE is a proper implementation for edge technologies (Worthman, 2016). Billions of sensors and elements are interconnected by a virtual connection provided by simplified data processing technology.

Furthermore, edge computing and fog computing are often used as synonyms, although, in fact, the terms are different. Certainly, both types of computation take place in close proximity to the data, but it should be said, that the difference is that in fog computing, the analysis is done on network-connected devices (Linthicum, n.d.). At the same time, for edge computing, processing is done both over the network and autonomously.

References

Ghosh, P. (2018). Internet of things vs. edge computing: Processing real-time data. Data Versity. Web.

Karl, A. (2018). Internet of everything vs. internet of things. TechGenix. Web.

Linthicum, D. (n.d.). Edge computing vs. fog computing: Definitions and enterprise uses. Cisco. Web.

Worthman, E. (2016). Mobile edge computing for the IoE. Semiconductor Engieering. Web.