Dubai: In the past few years, we have seen datacentre infrastructure as well as applications evolving across the Middle East and Africa, the explosion of cloud computing has also helped drive business.
Datacentres have become a necessary investment — an enabler and business driver for most companies — across almost every industry.
“We have access to practically infinite amounts of data we can broadcast, share, send, discuss, edit, analyse and store in digital content. This data is multiplying faster than ever before and the volume needs to be managed and processed efficiently and almost instantly in real time. Local and global demand for such a service has made way for ‘Edge computing’ in the market,” said Jonathan Duncan, IT Business Director for Regional Application Centre Building and IT Business at Schneider Electric.
Edge computing is also one way of responding to the issue of latency which is essentially the amount of time data takes to travel from point A to B.
Edge computing is a technology which takes data processing closer to the edge of the network where the raw data is generated.
Although large hyper-scale cloud-based datacentres will remain on the landscape, he said that they will in turn be supported by more localised, regional or even micro- datacentres. The edge technology helps accumulate and process data in real time, enhance accuracy and facilitate faster trend prediction — particularly useful in industries such as manufacturing, utilities, energy, transportation, health care and retail.
While cities in the US, London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris are adopting Edge Computing with much success, he said that others lag behind in terms of IT readiness and policy framework to better leverage it.
The demand for greater bandwidths is growing in the GCC, largely due to infrastructure developments and industrial change.
“Approaching the 100 GbE (100Gbps Ethernet) mark may seem a fair way off, but ICT infrastructures today must be quickly adapted to meet those speeds. Industries such as telecoms and cloud providers are already in need for such capacities. Edge could be one way to alleviate this challenge and need for speed,” Duncan said.
According to Cisco, all people and ‘things’ connected to the internet will generate around 507.5 zetta-bytes of data by 2019.
He said that breaking down such a massive quantity of data will be challenging, even for the traditional cloud or enterprise datacentre model. Simple Edge Computing, even by making use of a ‘gateway’ type device to process the information, can yield real-time computation at a lower operational cost, instead of accumulating all this information into a complex and virtualiser data bank for processing.
This region, which already possesses significant IoT capabilities, could jump on the edge bandwagon rapidly. Although digital infrastructure readiness remains high, industries will require concrete policy and regulatory frameworks before adopting edge, he said.
He said that Edge is poised to revolutionise a number of industries and user experiences. For example, retailers are looking today for ways to predict market tastes and evolving trends to tailor-make their offerings proactively, while providing the best customised customer service.
The next-generation shoppers will experience virtual and augmented reality as they walk into a store, whether it is an e-store they visit through Oculus, Google or holograms of models and salespersons wearing or demonstrating the merchandise and its features.
“It could even be facial recognition software which identifies frequent customers, their purchase history and provides recommendations accordingly. These experiences can be made possible by understanding the IoT technology, which would be connected to an on-site datacentre located on the network edge,” he said.
Edge compute nodes also provide the telecom industry with an opportunity to transform its business model to provide their customers with better service, lower latency and reduce transmission costs.
The Edge can also help efficient management of logistics in places such as stadiums or airports. This is especially relevant to the Gulf region ahead of mega-events such as Expo 2020 and Qatar World Cup 2022.
Edge can provide operators with real-time visibility on safety, security and all services, even updating occupancy rates or capacities and also help robotics technology devices such as drones or smart traffic lights by streamlining machine-to-machine communication, providing quick effective responses.
“In short — the edge is capable of making our infrastructure smarter and providing our industries with optimised performance and a higher return on investment,” he said.
Considering that Edge compute solutions will be at the core of the IoT adoption — the region’s governments must pay heed to this game-changing technology, which is here to stay, he added.
