The Benefits of Edge Computing for Manufacturers

Edge Computing is a part of distributed computing system wherein computation and data processing are housed closer to the physical location of where they are used. It essentially means that the cloud servers you need to access your data and perform your operations will now be closer to your company’s geographic location, or at least the geographic location of where that data is used.

 

Until now, businesses typically used cloud environments housed in data centers spread across the world to process their data and perform analysis. However, with the advent of IoT, the amount of data generated at the enterprise level is astronomical, and the current network and infrastructure are not capable of computing all this data at speeds that support real-time analysis. 

 

Moreover, data volumes will exponentially increase in the coming years, and businesses and manufacturers won’t be able to function smoothly, let alone efficiently if they must rely on the latency of a global cloud network to perform operations. 

 

Here’s where edge computing comes into play.

Edge computing for manufacturers solves several challenges posed by the current system. Gartner predicts that by 2025, 75% of enterprise data will be created and processed in edge computing environments. Here are a few reasons why. These reasons are crucial advantages for manufacturers.

 

Lower Latency

 

With clouds and data centers being much closer to your physical location, your data won’t have to travel to servers located far away just to be logged, structured, and analyzed. This means that data transfer speeds will be much faster, thus reducing latency. 

 

Furthermore, the increase in data volumes in the future will cause deadlocks and low bandwidth issues, especially when transferring data from several different organizations and locations into a single cloud environment. Edge computing offers a solution so that you don’t have to reach a computing state in which organizations are competing for bandwidth.

 

With physical servers and micro data centers nearby, access, computations, and other operations can be executed multiple times faster with edge computing systems. With IoT Edge devices, the analysis and storage time will drop drastically, hence, increasing the organization’s ability to process larger volumes of data.

 

Better Security

 

Although edge computing is dependent upon physical computing environments being spread across multiple locations, it can also be more secure than relying on a single data center for the bulk of the organization’s computations. Data centers centralize an organization’s computing resources, placing all its critical data in a single physical location. A successful attack, natural disaster, or long-term outage can cause much more harm to the organization if it impacts the entire data operation.

 

With edge computing, all data, processes, and computations are distributed to different locations based on the requirements of that location. This way, if there’s an attack on any one of these edge devices, it wouldn’t bring down an entire system.

 

Moreover, since more and more computations will occur on the on-premises systems, companies will incur a smaller loss if an edge device is attacked or damaged. 

 

Furthermore, since the systems are near where the data is produced, they give hackers fewer opportunities to intercept the data while it’s in transit. A single data stream won’t have to bounce across nodes across the world to reach its location. This means the safety and security of data automatically increases.

 

Faster Analytics

 

With data now being processed nearby, the time it takes to turn data into insights and actions is much smaller. You won’t have to wait for your computation requests to ping the data center, then be sent back to your location to be used. Faster analytics impact other parts of the business as well. 

 

With the increased speed, you can also process more data to help you make critical decisions much sooner than the current scenario. If your manufacturing plant operates AI or complex robotics systems that require fast data analysis to perform, an edge capability can make your plant safer and more productive.

 

Another aspect that edge computing solves is a reduced data strain on your central servers. It is all too common to hear servers crashing or malfunctioning due to an overload of requests for data and computations. With edge computing, these requests are delegated to edge environments where they are processed based on importance, proximity, and necessity.  

 

At the same time, since only relevant data and information is brought closer to your locations, it becomes easier for you to process data. If you’re looking for a piece of specific information, it becomes easier to search for it and find it within your limited data storage.

 

Reduced Storage Costs

 

This is perhaps one of the most significant advantages of edge computing systems—reduced costs. With edge computing systems, the costs for everything will be reduced drastically. 

 

In a traditional data center setup, there are high costs for both the organization and the vendor if the organization is renting server space or an entire data center. Vendors need a dedicated team for different areas of cloud management and to manage the data center. This workforce is enormous and expensive.

 

With edge computing, all these challenges are resolved since the system will become decentralized and partitioned into smaller, more dedicated data centers. Vendors wouldn’t need too many people to manage the edge computing environment, and management of these centers can be done remotely. Furthermore, traveling between on and offsite locations can be reduced, as members of the organization that rely on the edge computing environment are already nearby.

 

Harness the Power of Edge Computing with Uvation

 

Edge computing is quickly becoming a necessary investment in the manufacturing space, especially as more and more manufacturers deploy AI-powered technologies and turn their plants into smart factories. Several organizations can assist you with your edge computing needs, but Uvation can offer a vast range of services to help you network as well as the physical computing requirements you’ll need to make edge computing work for you.

 

As a manufacturer, you can harness edge computing’s power by implementing it for your most critical plants and factories. You can leverage it to test pilot programs for new technologies, such as autonomous robotics solutions, and you can manage all your data operations efficiently will you transform your organization with the latest technology. 

 

Uvation can enable you to derive the best results from your business through edge computing. Our experts can guide you through the process of deploying your edge computing capability in a simple, straightforward, and hassle-free manner. Contact us today to upgrade your business with edge computing.