1.What is edge computing? Why is it beneficial?
The digital transformation, which all businesses have faced in recent years, has led to the discovery of a huge wealth of information, partly already available within the businesses themselves, partly to be seized on the market thanks to innovative tools made available. Just think of the industrial sector: transformations introduced by the concept of Industry 4.0 have drastically reshaped the development models and the organisation of production in the company, making central the concepts of customised product, and connection to the external world, to reach the so-called "factory of the future". All this requires a greater horizontal and vertical integration of business activities and full interoperability between IT (Information Technology) and OT (Operational Technology) worlds. Hence the need to respond to the needs of bandwidth-intensive applications, latency-sensitive applications, resiliency in operations, and scalability of services.
There is a massive amount of data that is being generated right now at the edge. With all the sensors and all the cameras that are deployed all over the world, there is too much data being generated for it all to be brought back to the cloud or to the data center. This massive amount of data requires that the computing capability to process it all needs to be delivered to where the data is actually being created – directly at the edge site.
The concept of edge computing emerged for this scope. By processing data closer to its source, rather than sending it to a centralized infrastructure it lets:
•To improve performance by processing data near where it is generated, reducing network latency and bandwidth consumption, and resulting in faster and more reliable services for end users.
•To deploy applications where they make the most sense, such as in remote locations, on vehicles or on the manufacturing floor, where connectivity may be intermittent or costly.
•To meet regulatory and privacy requirements by keeping data within the boundaries of different regions, countries or jurisdictions, avoiding potential fines or legal issues.
•To embrace innovation, allowing enterprises to leverage new technologies such as artificial intelligence and augmented reality, which require high-performance and real-time data processing at the edge.
Edge computing enables applications such as autonomous vehicles, smart cities, and Internet of Things devices to operate more efficiently and reliably.
2. Is edge computing suitable for companies from all sectors? Where can it be applied?
The central idea outlined in Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” is that it is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
This concept well represents the main challenge that every company must face today. Edge computing contributes significantly to this goal, and can be applied to various industries and domains, such as banking and finance, manufacturing, oil and gas, healthcare, retail, agriculture, smart cities and more.
3. How is edge computing connected to security?
To seize the opportunities offered by the market, in different industrial sectors it is not uncommon to face the need to connect to the Internet devices that are 10-15 years old. These systems were developed on the concept of “closed system”, with a processing capacity able to satisfy the functioning of the system and nothing more. It is not uncommon to find systems with very old software releases, and impossible to update except through a long and expensive recertification process, which carry with them all those security bugs that have been identified and addressed by new releases.
Edge is a powerful security tool because it will reduce the surface attack by moving security functions close to sensors, where data are generated, limiting the possible impairment to few elements, only.
4. How is edge computing connected to IoT (Internet of Things)?
We are witnessing the increasing integration of advanced technologies, derived from the Internet of Things, with the aim of increasing the reliability and efficiency of processes, safety, maintenance capabilities (remote and predictive), but also the quality of products, the flexibility and adaptability of production processes, and the possibility of customized and on-demand productions.
Connecting objects, in the loT sense, Edge Computing allows to interface and interact with the physical world (factories, shops, airports, trucks and vessels, roads and cities, etc.), acquire computational, communication and measurement capabilities, and thus provide access to information and data everywhere, continuously, accurately and in real time, even over extremely large areas.
5. How can a company integrate edge computing in their current strategy?
I would suggest to start by reading the report of The Global Lighthouse Network, the initiative from the World Economic Forum in collaboration with McKinsey & Company. It examines the future of operations and considers how Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies are shaping production, by looking at a community of organizations that are setting the trends of the future with their use of digital and analytics tools across the value chain to drive growth and productivity, improve resilience, and deliver environmental sustainability (Lenovo has been recently selected as one of the additional manufactures for its leadership and integration of fourth Industrial revolution technologies).
One of the outputs of this report is the answer to the question about how these companies have successfully scaled the Fourth Industrial Revolution, while many others remain in pilot purgatory, held back by outdated working modes or insufficient innovation. The answer passes through three must-haves for success:
a)A clear, value-driven strategy. With the vast number of use cases and possibilities ahead, without a strategy there is the risk to remain into the pilot purgatory phase.
b)Agility requires a skilled workforce, that remain at the centre of the digital transformation, with continuous skilling, reskilling and upskilling. As the report remember, scaling is a team effort, and people are the team.
c)Set up the right governance. Without it, and the right execution, companies cannot capture the real value of data or generate real impact.
6. What can Bechtle and Lenovo do to help companies implement edge computing?
Bechtle together with Lenovo can advise the IT teams and help them build a customized solution to tackle the challenges of their business. In fact, edge computing comes with several challenges, which can all be traced back to leaving the secure and controllable environment of the data center. Businesses must utilize immensely capable computing equipment that can also deal with vastly different extreme temperatures, different humidity levels, and different shock and vibration environments. Being outside of the data center, the edge compute equipment itself needs to have extra security – as well as the data within it.
All of this combines to form the biggest challenge of them all, which is managing all of this at scale. Due to immense amounts of data being generated all around the world, businesses can have thousands of servers deployed globally to form their edge server infrastructure. All these servers need to be deployed and managed without having to send technicians all over the world.
Today, enhanced edge automation capabilities make it easier than ever to support data-based decisions at the speed of business. The new Lenovo Open Cloud Automantion ( LOC-a) securely authenticates and activates leading Think Edge servers on site via a phone application, accelerating business insights with a fully operational edge infrastructure within minutes or hours.
To ensure businesses stay ahead of these myriad challenges, Lenovo’s full ThinkEdge portfolio of edge server products have been designed to work effectively in the most difficult conditions imaginable. The full portfolio can handle the most extreme temperatures, as well as different shock and vibration factors. Smart filtration technologies have even been implemented, ensuring Lenovo’s equipment can be used in very dusty environments. The sound produced by the ThinkEdge lineup has also been architected to be unnoticeable, so that businesses can have high performance servers situated adjacent to the users, while maintaining a very low sound level. And finally, the servers use special technologies designed to lock edge servers into place, with movement detection enabled. That way, if someone attempts to steal or tamper with the device, all the data contained inside it will be locked and protected.
However, the biggest advantage offered through ThinkEdge is the innovations inside the server itself. These innovations stem from the expertise, know-how and craftsmanship of all of Lenovo’s divisions. The ThinkEdge server portfolio is truly a “One Lenovo” showcase. From our laptop division, we learned how to build edge servers to be highly compact and very ruggedized for ease of deployment and operation in challenging environments. We learned from our Motorola mobile division how to build wireless antennas that can effectively communicate with edge servers, even if there is no physical network capable of reaching the site where a specific server is situated.
Finally, the Infrastructure Solutions Group combined these benefits with the highest performing servers in the market today and the strongest resiliency.
The result is a high performing portfolio of edge servers, built on the best-of-breed technologies, based on open standards, supported internationally by the same level of service we are used to for our notebooks, and capable of empowering companies with real-time data processing at a global scale, which in turn powers smarter business decisions.
