How to solve edge bottlenecks caused by the surge in data usage

The importance of data is changing today, and the structure of the global internet does not support today’s multi-directional traffic. This has only increased as the coronavirus pandemic has spread and more people have transitioned to the workplace and learning from home environments.

[[326472]]

Edge computing bottleneck

While the world adjusts to the new reality of social isolation, organizations are asking their employees to work remotely and most of people’s daily activities have moved online, the capacity of existing networks has become strained. A recent article published on the World Economic Forum website: “Will the Coronavirus Break the Internet?” reports that global Internet usage has increased by 50% in some parts of the world. In early March, Internet exchanges in Amsterdam, Frankfurt and London saw a 20% increase in traffic, while Milan’s Internet exchange saw a 40% increase that day. The Italian government issued a shelter-in-place order.

One US fiber and wireless provider reported that upstream traffic has increased 32% and downstream traffic has increased 18% since March 1, with VoIP and video conferencing up 228%. Another network provider noted that as more employees work and play from home, VPN usage has increased 49% and online gaming has increased 115%. Interestingly, even as Cisco predicts that video traffic will account for 82% of all traffic by 2022, this network provider reported that video has already increased 36%.

Now, more than ever, it is clear that the diversity of data flows, volumes, and speeds requires a dramatic reconfiguration of the Internet to make it more customer-centric.

Edge and core interoperable

In the past, technological developments such as the Internet of Everything (IoE) and artificial intelligence have shifted the center of gravity of data and computing from the core to the edge. By allowing data analysis at the edge, the shift to local computing capabilities is improving overall enterprise agility and strategic and operational decision-making. However, at the same time, this leads to traffic and data volumes that traditional network models cannot support. The edge is the lowest latency point of demarcation between service delivery and consumption. Moving computing and data storage closer to end users at the edge enables higher capacity, lower latency, greater data security and reduces expenses for enterprises.

Even as businesses attempt to cautiously reopen and data traffic continues to surge as safe social distancing guidelines are maintained around the world, cloud and carrier-agnostic data centers in Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets that provide peering at the edge will remain essential to alleviate any network bottlenecks. Customers have always expected to have on-demand access to their content and applications anywhere, anytime. But now, the foundations of personal and professional life depend on it.

Edge computing reduces the amount of data flowing in and out of the core network by processing data closer to the source and prioritizing traffic. By moving data processing away from the centralized core and distributing it among localized edge data centers, companies can significantly reduce the distance data must travel before delivering services, resulting in lower latency, improved performance, and a more seamless experience for customers.

That is, the edge and core must work together to meet the needs of enterprises and end users for high-speed connections that can support the use of latency-sensitive business applications and bandwidth-intensive content. The implementation of this new network model will enable companies to optimize traffic and choose where data computing should be performed based on latency, performance and cost requirements. The edge and core are interoperable.

While it is impossible to be certain what our lifestyles or economic conditions will look like in two weeks, two months, two quarters, or a year from now, two things are certain. People will recover, even as the digital world expands at a speed that few industry leaders expect. To ease global network congestion, enterprise organizations, edge data centers, cloud computing, and service providers will have to work together to solve computing and network challenges as data traffic inevitably soars to unprecedented levels. In addition, to accommodate multi-directional traffic, edge data centers come in a variety of forms, from local-scale wholesale data centers of 1MW to 10MW, to local edge micro data centers of 10kW to 1MW, to hyperscale deployments of 10MW to 100MW. Data center facilities must be designed and deployed wherever customers’ demand for data and connectivity is unlimited.