Imagine a car cruising down the street when a deer suddenly darts out in front. There’s a millisecond to act and countless factors to consider. Swerving right may trigger a crash with an oncoming taxi. Veering left steers the car onto a sidewalk, endangering any pedestrians. Braking risks a collision with the van following too closely behind. Such decisions are made by drivers daily, too often resulting in negative consequences. The considerations involved in complex scenarios like these are simply too numerous and require such speed that no human could possibly evaluate all the available data to make the safest decision in a split second–but edge computing can.
Using cameras, sensors and a Wireless Private Network, the car detects the presence of the deer and communicates the hazard to nearby vehicles and smart devices, initiating a coordinated response that minimizes risk to all parties. Because of the sheer amount of data processing involved, such actions would be impossible if the information had to travel back and forth between computers thousands of kilometres away. For the system to work, the data must be nearby.
Few understand the concept better than Dennis Hoffman, who leads the Telecom Systems Business for Dell Technologies. As he explains it, edge computing is the ability to run an application close to the point of data creation. “At the end of the day, it really comes down to the ability to capture and process information to make decisions. The closer we are to that physical event, the quicker it is to make and implement an action,” he explains. “It’s where the physical world meets the digital world.” Click here to read more.