Edge computing is poised to take the server computing world by storm. Edge computing is a best of both worlds approach – combining the flexibility, scalability and ease of access of the cloud, with the privacy and security of the private datacenter.
So where is the edge of your enterprise? It’s closer than you think. The edge is usually defined by the data center location that is closest to you – the user – at login. When you’re at your enterprise world headquarters, it’s probably in the building. When you’re at your satellite office, it’s your friendly private cloud hosting provider up the street. Or perhaps down the line there will be an AWS Boston for those of us posted up in a co-working space in Boston’s Chinatown district. The edge is how you define it and where it is located is of less importance than what it can do.
Key Benefits of Edge Computing
Reduce Latency
Everyone wants remote access to their desktop and applications. But high latency can render a user experience that is anywhere from slightly slow to practically unusable. We’ve written quite a bit about how the display protocol impacts desktop performance, but ultimately, the further that data has to go, the slower it’s going to get there. Thus, the key to optimizing your desktop experience is locating the closest one. So, when you’re at the office, it’s the desktop in your datacenter. When you’re at the manufacturing plant or the oil rig, it’s the rack of HPE Edgeline servers – which are built for remote and rugged environments. When you’re traveling to meet with a customer, it’s the closet AWS datacenter. Using the Leostream Connection Broker to manage your on-prem, cloud, and edge environments, the Broker can automatically select the desktop closest to the user’s login location to optimize their experience.
Limit Vectors of Attack
Way back around 2011 when the cloud was still in its infancy and only the adventurous early adopters were even kicking the tires, the general reaction was shock and appall at the idea of hosting enterprise data in a public cloud? Could we trust Amazon, an online retailer of all things, with our most sensitive data? More importantly, what would happen while the data was transferred back and forth from datacenters hundreds of miles away?
Amazon has mostly proved their worth with data security, but that data transfer is still a risky maneuver. Edge computing is the solution. With edge computing, the data transfer is much, much shorter. It might never leave the building – all but eliminating the data transfer vector of attack.
Enhance Data Security
Sure, your data is probably okay in Amazon. But for those of the “keep it secure, keep it in house” camp, edge computing is a great way to provide the feature set of the cloud, while still sleeping well knowing your data is tucked away safe and sound in your own server racks.
Edge computing is still in its early days, but it’s easy to see the promise it holds in terms of hybrid cloud computing. Effective brokering and connection management will be the key ingredient for optimizing an environment for an edge computing strategy.