Page 18 - FCW, November/December 2020

EDGE COMPUTING
Accelerating
mission success
at the edge
Faster access to insights opens up new opportunities for employee engagement and innovation
Kirsten Billhardt
Global Marketing Director, Edge and IoT Solutions, Dell Technologies
Key considerations for adopting edge computing
Agencies should view edge computing
as another tool in the toolbox. For any given workload, they should ask: What is the right technology environment? What performance do I need? What can I afford? There can be more than one right answer. Sometimes an agency will want to be in
a cloud environment, sometimes it will choose an edge computing environment, and often, it will need both. In that situation, some quick analytics can happen at the edge, but then the data can move
to the cloud for a deeper evaluation that
EDGE COMPUTING ALLOWS agencies to grab data from the physical world and use it in
the digital world. Because edge computing brings insights and intelligence right where that data is being generated, it gives agencies the ability to return data analysis and insights very quickly.
Reducing latency is extremely important when time is of the essence — for example, when an agency needs to predict a potential disaster or when employees are working
in remote locations. By having access
to intelligence right where data is being generated and analyzed, frontline workers can be empowered to make data-
driven, timely decisions that advance
the agency’s mission. They can be
more productive because they’re
not waiting for answers to come
back down the line, and they are
more engaged because they’ve been invested with the capacity to make
good decisions.
Keeping data analytics close to where data is being generated can also reduce vulnerabilities, improve security and support compliance with data locality and data privacy requirements.
Edge plus the power of 5G
Highly immersive and data- intensive services often won’t work in a centralized data center or even a cloud. The clearest example is autonomous vehicles. In that case, the onboard computer must be
able to communicate with the car’s sensors and cameras in real time.
The data does not leave the car because we cannot afford even a few milliseconds for it to travel to a data center for analysis.
Such latency-sensitive use cases require edge computing and are further enhanced by the addition of 5G. Other emerging technologies that benefit from that combination include precision robotics, virtual reality and mission-critical artificial intelligence. For highly elastic, data- intensive, time-sensitive and immersive graphical capabilities, 5G plus edge computing is the formula for achieving the outcomes that agencies seek.
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