Distributed Cloud Computing

- The Advantages of Edge Computing as a Distributed Cloud

"Distributed cloud goes along with automated deployment of applications at just the right location in the network to optimize resource efficiency and user experience. For that reason, orchestration is a key capability providing end to end management of networking, cloud infrastructure and workload placement.

The dynamic orchestration simplifies the complexity of the network enabling intelligent placement of workloads to everyone. The intelligent placement is policy driven and based on criteria such as latency, geolocation, and throughput. Going forward, finding the optimal placement in the network will typically be enhanced by using artificial intelligence and machine learning." -- [Ericsson]

- Maintaining Connectivity

Edge computing offloads data to the cloud during peaks in computing traffic, thus ensuring a quick, reliable, real-time connection. For example, IoT devices often require constant internet connections, sometimes along with low latency needs. Edge helps manage the massive amounts of data produced by IoT devices by storing and processing the data locally until a connection can be reestablished, or by quickly sending data to the central cloud when the network is overwhelmed.

- Smart Manufacturing

Edge computing allows smart manufacturing machines to operate without relying on a large central data center or cloud. Using the edge for analysis of data gathered on location minimizes the amount of data infrastructure needed and means less frequent disruptions. 

With edge computing, machines in a smart factory will be automated. Edge computing can enable the many devices in the factory to work together. Sensor data can allow for changes to speed of operations to adapt to conditions of the machinery. Outside of IoT uses, predictive analytics can help factory managers plan for machine part replacement, minimizing downtime.

- Decreased Congestion

Since distributed clouds are local to the user, data only has to travel a short distance to the compute, storage, or network resources. This means less data is going greater distances to large data centers or centralized clouds, and there is an overall decrease in network traffic congestion. 

A distributed cloud can reduce the strain of wearable devices on the core network, because data from those devices doesn’t have to go as far to get to the necessary server for data storage and processing, minimizing the use of network infrastructure.

[More to come ...]