Five ways edge computing drives digital business

Every industry has created a new normal: if your IT infrastructure is not digitally ready, your business will not have a competitive advantage. As enterprise technology continues to become more seamlessly connected, businesses must continue to bring IT delivery, applications, and data processing closer to users at the digital edge.

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To be clear: Edge computing is a method of optimizing cloud computing systems by performing data processing at the edge of the network. This reduces the communication bandwidth required between sensors and central data centers by performing analysis and knowledge generation at or near the data source. This approach requires the use of resources that may not be continuously connected to the network, such as laptops, smartphones, tablets, and sensors.

In essence, edge computing also involves communicating with each other through Bluetooth and other non-cloud methods, reducing the workload that was previously processed in 24/7 cloud computing systems. This not only improves the efficiency of computing and data applications, but also promotes the further implementation of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and 5G bandwidth.

To get closer to the edge and accelerate the transition to a digital-ready state, IT leaders must consider using interconnectivity (i.e., direct and private data exchange between key business partners) to eliminate the distance between IT services and users. This is the only way to rapidly and exponentially improve digital business performance, driven by the dynamic interaction between people, systems, applications, data, and clouds at the digital edge. As the digitalization of the global economy grows, global networking bandwidth capacity is also increasing. It is expected that by 2022, the capacity will reach 13,300+TB/ps.

Steve Madden, Vice President of Market Segment Development at Equinix, outlines five key actions digital leaders can take to accelerate IT transformation to achieve digital readiness. Equinix conducts an annual study that assesses the growth of the global digital economy, evaluating and predicting the most successful ways companies can leverage interconnection to enhance their business.

The study, called the Global Connectivity Index (GXI), pinpoints the typical deployment profile required to achieve a digital-ready state. This target state incorporates interconnected hubs across regions, linking unique ecosystem players through a multitude of direct interconnections. The result is a state that is not only able to survive, but also address the convergence of macro trends that all businesses are facing in order to gain greater advantage. According to the GXI, implementing the following five IT transformation steps is critical to creating a competitive advantage for your digital business.

1. Optimize network segments

Eliminating the distance between users and services can reduce transmission costs by more than 60%, reduce latency by more than 30%, and increase bandwidth by 10 times. To optimize network segments, IT leaders must re-architect their enterprise networks—one strategic location at a time—as a distributed set of interconnected hubs at the digital edge.

2. Connecting private and public clouds

Directly connecting public and private clouds and segmenting traffic into hubs can reduce cloud connectivity costs by 70%, while also reducing complexity and creating more connectivity options. According to GXI data, cloud and IT services are the main consumers of interconnect bandwidth, with a compound annual growth rate of 41% as these businesses further expand their global reach and enable hybrid multi-cloud infrastructures.

3. Adjacent deployment security control

Large-scale cybersecurity breaches are a serious risk. Cybersecurity insurance premiums paid by businesses are expected to increase from $2.5 billion in 2015 to $20 billion by 2025. Managing cybersecurity risk requires distributed and interconnected security controls to control access and data in real time, reducing audit costs and overall security risk. GXI predicts that for businesses with operations in more than three countries, the interconnection bandwidth required to locally connect data sources and security controls will increase fivefold

Meet data compliance regulations and reduce cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

4. Global management data exchange

By 2022, more than 50% of enterprise-generated data will be created and processed outside of a data center or cloud. However, more than 20 major countries block data transfer across borders. For enterprises that spend more than $50,000 per month on distributed IT services, the need for interconnection bandwidth capacity to support real-time interactions increases by an average of 4 times. Managing data exchange globally through interconnection reduces data transmission costs, enables real-time delivery, and creates localized processing advantages.

5. Exchange in the digital business ecosystem

Placing business-differentiating services at the exchange point enables companies to participate in different digital business ecosystems. This helps provide companies with the highest digital throughput at the lowest latency, maximizing digital experience and market position. Combined with all the other points, a company becomes digitally ready. Achieving a digital-ready state enables application exchange—placing highly interactive business and user-facing services physically close to customers, employees, partners, and the cloud for premium performance, ecosystem access, and security. This optimized state gives enterprises a clear advantage in this regard.

6. Summary

Together, these actions form a connected maturity model for addressing the disruptive trends facing all businesses. GXI also provides a real-world deployment profile of digital-ready infrastructure that will help IT leaders assess where their company stands in digital maturity. With these fresh insights, leaders can develop a game-changing digital business platform that maximizes their company’s position at the digital edge to drive new value for their customers, employees, and partners on a global scale.