What exactly does edge computing mean?

The word "edge" has been given a new definition in the world of the Internet of Things. With the advent of the 5G era, edge computing has also been rapidly promoted and popularized. So what exactly is edge computing?

The professional explanation of edge computing is too complicated, so we try to explain it with a simple example.

Some people believe that octopuses are not like earth creatures, but more like alien species. This statement is not groundless.

The octopus genome contains about 33,000 genes, which is 5-6 times that of common invertebrates. Its blood is blue, it has three hearts, a soft body with multiple legs and no hair, and it is smarter than many animals.

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In fact, the octopus is a typical example of "edge computing."

Have you ever thought about this question? Why is the octopus so smart? Why does it have so many arms when catching prey or escaping? Why don't they get tangled together?

This is thanks to the architecture of the octopus's brain.

Unlike humans, where all neurons are concentrated in the brain, an octopus only has 40% of its neurons in its brain, with the other 60% distributed in its arms.

What are the benefits of doing this?

The advantage is that the octopus can use its own arms to think about problems. For example, if the octopus's arm touches a crab, it does not need to transmit this information to the brain. It can directly use this arm to complete the thinking and respond immediately.

This is edge computing! Move data processing, application running, and even the implementation of some functional services from the network center to each edge node to improve agility, real-time performance, security, etc.

The maintenance and inspection of facilities have always consumed a lot of manpower and material resources. With the continuous increase of IoT devices, the amount of data generated at the edge of the network has become very huge. If all this data is handed over to the cloud management platform for processing, it will undoubtedly bear a lot of traffic pressure, and low latency and real-time collaborative work will be difficult to guarantee, and data security risks will also increase.

It's like a human with gigantism. His limbs keep growing longer and thicker. The transmission speed of neurons is limited, so the giant's reaction will become slower and slower. Finally, if a finger is cut, it will take half a day for this information to be transmitted to the brain, which is undoubtedly fatal.

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If humans with gigantism could use edge computing like octopuses, with neurons on their fingers that could process massive amounts of data and information locally, and all parts of the body used this mechanism, efficiency would definitely be greatly improved.

In the Internet of Things environment, a large number of devices use edge computing to work together efficiently, and many problems can be solved.

Edge computing is that simple, not complicated.