We have arrived at an era where data plays an important role in modern business operations. Businesses can gain valuable insights through the data collected in which they can accurately tailor their services to the customer needs and behaviour.

This development is also supported by the fact that data collection is becoming easier these days as millions of data can be generated by various devices, starting from sensors, IoT competition, and other technologies.

In a more conventional point of view, many organizations choose to utilize centralized data centers to collect various data points. However, this option poses many challenges related to bandwidth wastage, latency issues, and network disruptions due to the large amount of data being processed on a daily basis.

A new approach has emerged to address these issues known as Edge computing. What is Edge Computing, and where is the role of the Data Center in the middle of this Edge Computing trend? Let’s discuss this further.

Definition of Edge Computing

Edge Computing is a distributed computing framework that enables computing and data storage closer to the source or user. In general, we can also define the term Edge Computing as moving some computing resources to be processed outside the Data Center to be closer to the user.

Instead of sending and processing data to a distant Data Center, Edge Computing allows for data to be processed on the spot, closer to the origin of where the data is generated the utilization of Edge Computing will enable lower latency of data transfer and also save bandwidth costs as data does not need to travel so far back to the main Data Center for processing.

Similar to Edge Data Center, this approach is also very effective for several technologies that require real-time data processing, such as the use of autonomous vehicles, connected rail systems, automated industries, IoT and so on.

The Role of Data Centers in the Edge Computing Trend

Edge Computing is a growing trend for several technologies that requires large amounts of data storage, and processing done in real-time with low latency.

The utilization of Edge Computing can overcome the latency problem that has been the main challenges for digital businesses to scale quickly. Furthermore, Edge Computing is also able to overcome data security and privacy issues because data processing is done at a local scope.

However, the key challenge to the successful adoption of Edge Computing lies in their IT infrastructure.

In order to have effective use cases for Edge Computing, enterprises will require Data Centers that are located close to their end users where the data is stored and managed.

Combining Edge Computing and Data Center will also create further benefits to businesses, this term is often known as “edge-to-cloud computing”.

Edge-to-cloud computing is an approach where data is stored and processed at the Data Center, but at the same time processed and analyzed at Edge Computing in real-time.

When successfully adopted, organizations are able get data resources with greater flexibility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness.