Edge Computing is a trend which is seen growing recently in India. Earlier, Cloud computing was advantageous but now edge computing has driven its way forward as the new technology. The technology of cloud computing has been adopted by tech developers as everything moved to cloud storage. The data, servers, and client information started being stored in the cloud.

But the edge computing has emerged as a new trend in the world of IT. Let’s see what it is and how it could be differentiated from cloud computing.

Although cloud computing is very popular as a service and almost 28% of the organization’s total budget is kept for the cloud, the researchers and tech developers have been experimenting with the Edge as well. The term Edge Computing refers to the architecture of web services rather than technology. It is generally all the computing that occurs outside the cloud at the edge of the network. It is beneficial for applications where real-time processing is required. The basic difference between both cloud and edge computing is that “cloud” operates on big data while “edge” operates on instant data.

Now the question arises, why should we use edge computing?

The basic aim of edge computing is to reduce data dependency and move all the data from the center of the cloud to the edge of the network. This is done by the use of smart objects or network gateways that perform tasks on the behalf of cloud.

One biggest advantage of edge computing is that by moving data to the edge, one can enable:

• Content caching
• Service delivery
• Data storage
• IoT management

All of this improves the response time and enables better transfer rates.

Over the time, the data transmission is expected to grow 61% to 175 zettabytes. In such a situation, a limit is put in the network bandwidth for storing all the data in the cloud data centers. There have been many improvements in network technology and they will continue in the future. But all these developments together cannot guarantee the transfer rates and response times which most of the consistent applications require.

Moreover, physical proximity to the user is enabled if he uses edge computing. This is because the devices using edge computing consume the data coming directly from the cloud. It forces the tech companies to decentralize the data storage and service positioning, which in turn gives proximity to the user.

Advantages of Edge Computing over Cloud Computing:

There are huge amounts of data transmission being carried on every day by the organizations. They face the problem of latency caused by communicating information from devices across the network to a centralized computing system, which occurs in cloud computing. Thus, edge computing is used to combat that problem and using data for processing.

Edge computing can be used to store time-sensitive data that can generate high responses in remote locations with/without internet connectivity.

Any delay in the decision-making process by cloud computing (due to latency) could lead to a huge loss for the organization. For such reasons, edge computing is prioritized because devices with computation and technology, could be placed on the edge of the network.

Cloud computing often delays time (up to 2 seconds) to process information to a centralized data center. This, in turn, delays the process of decision-making. This is called signal latency. But edge computing saves this from happening and the automatic time-responses are generated rapidly, preventing any losses to the company.

Preference of Edge computing over Cloud Computing:

Both edge and cloud computing are different technologies. They could be used non-interchangeably and cannot replace each other. Their processing of data is also different in both the computing methods. While cloud computing processes data that is not time-driven, edge computing processes time-sensitive data.

Edge computing is preferred over cloud computing in regions where little or no internet connectivity is possible, i.e. remote locations. Edge computing comes as a solution to it by providing local storage similar to a mini data center.

Intelligent services and specialization are also possible through edge computing. The specialized computing devices are intelligent and respond to machines in a particular way.

Edge computing brings the proximity between analytical computational resources and the users. This, in turn, increases the response rates and throughput of the application which the user has designed. The applications where a short response time is required, edge computing becomes even more beneficial to them.

The proximity of the analytical computational resources to the users helps to increase efficiency. The analytical tools and AI tools run on the edge of the system and thus, increase the efficiency of the operation.

The future of Cloud and Edge computing in India:

Though edge computing has benefits like efficiency, reduction in latency, and speed-related issues over cloud computing, it can still not handle all the applications across the environments.

Thus, cloud computing is here to stay and solve many other problems of the IT vendors. It will remain as relevant as today and will work alongside edge computing to provide real-time solutions. It will be there to solve data analytics which is not yet possible in some conditions for edge computing.

However, edge computing has been accepted in today’s tech world due to its removal of shortcomings in cloud computing.