Edge computing adds virtualisation and hyperconvergence: Part 1
Data is created at the edge and bringing processing power close to the source generates real-time information on which informed decisions and actions can be taken at the local level. This development — edge computing — has been driven by cost and time.
When you have zillions of devices it doesn’t make sense to send all the data to the cloud using expensive bandwidth and storage. Moreover a lot of the data is only valuable for a short time period and it needs to be analysed in near real-time in order to obtain insightful information and take the relevant action, says Bob Emmerson.
Edge computing is facilitated by the relatively recent ability of multi-functional intelligent gateways to aggregate and process data from diverse sources and handle complex tasks like real-time analytics. The combination of real-time data analytics in gateways and long-term data analytics in the cloud is used to discover hidden patterns, unknown correlations, market trends, customer preferences and other useful business information.
Therefore one can regard intelligent gateways as being small complementary clouds and their importance is set to rise. Gartner predicts that by 2022 75% of enterprise-generated data will be created and processed outside the data centre / cloud. The current figure is 10%.
VMware uses the term micro-data centres to describe this development and the company is enabling hyperconvergence at the edge by providing virtualised compute, storage and network capabilities to these remote data centres. Virtualisation allows multiple virtual machines (VMs) processing different applications to run on the same hardware platform.
The benefits of employing virtualisation in centralised data processing facilities are well known, in fact, they are taken for granted by IT professionals; extending them to the edge enables enterprises to realise the benefits across a fully distributed IoT architecture. In addition to lowering the total cost of ownership and enhancing flexibility to scale, this development provides a consistent data centre strategy: from edges through to centralised facilities, thereby accelerating the shifting balance between cloud and edge computing.
Realising that objective is a partnership play
The edge is a very different environment to that of a date centre. Solutions will typically operate in demanding environments, where hardware needs to be ruggedised and certified, which in turn means that OT expertise and experience is required. This is clearly something that VMware has recognised, hence the decision to partner with Eurotech and we can expect similar partnerships to be announced, PTC being an obvious future target.
Bob Emmerson
As a first step to realising hyperconvergence at the edge Eurotech together with VMware has recently demonstrated gateway and server products that were running VMware vSphere in ruggedised edge products. The next step — announced at a recent Webinar on “Moving Intelligence to the Edge” — was integration with Pulse IoT. This is a VMware IoT platform, an IoT solution with significant system management capabilities.
Pulse IoT was designed to help OT and IT professionals on-board, manage, monitor, and secure devices (things) throughout their lifecycle. It facilitates the ability to on-board edge systems and their connected devices, collect data, and analyse data streams to determine the operational health and status of the system or device. It also detects operational anomalies and takes action in real time.
Conclusions
Virtualisation began in the 1960’s as a mainframe computer technology. Five decades later it started a top to bottom overhaul of the computing industry and went on to become a real game-changer for the datacentre. With the benefit of hindsight, hyperconvergence and its deployment in enterprise-class IoT networks was a development waiting to happen.
Adding hyperconvergence functionality to edge computing looks like another game-changer, one that looks set to enable the delivery of a connected world that has been long on promise but short on delivery.
The author of this blog is Bob Emmerson, freelance IoT writer and commentator
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