A new report from Strategy Analytics claims that edge computing is on the rise in IoT deployments and is anticipated to show strong growth in the coming years.
The market research firm believes that data will be processed by edge computing in three fifths (59%) of the IoT deployments by 2025, which will mainly be driven by the efficient use of the network, security, and the response time. At present, the research suggests that 44% of companies today are leveraging the power of edge computing in some or the other form in their deployments.
Andrew Brown, executive director for enterprise and IoT research at Strategy, said: “While the cloud represents an increasingly common model for analysing IoT data, enthusiasm is growing for edge computing, where data can be analysed and filtered at the edge of the network. Doing so can lead to benefits in delivering a faster response from analysed data.
“Taking a more efficient and optimised approach in terms of what data is sent to the cloud, with reductions in traffic volumes, has positive net effects both on the security of the data being sent and the cost of sending data to the cloud,” Brown added.
Examples are ongoing of vendors exploring edge and IoT use cases. In February, Californian-based network equipment supplier Extreme Networks had launched the Defender for IoT, a solution that helps organisations secure edge and IoT devices. This solution is part of the company’s Smart OmniEdge solution that can be deployed on any network without the need of any expertise. It is activated simply by plugging the Defender Adapter into an Ethernet port.
Writing for IoT News in January, Patrick Hubbard, head geek at SolarWinds, argued that migrating towards the edge starts with identifying each individual business’ use case. Each organisation will have its own unique requirements that need to be taken into account. The surrounding infrastructure is often a main consideration. For instance, Hubbard says, the infrastructure is reliable and robust in metro cities, but in rural areas, with fewer users, the infrastructure required can be quite different.