Edge computing is often referred to as a natural extension of hybrid cloud environments. When cloud and edge combine, the benefits are huge. However, these benefits don’t come for free.
Since distributed IT environments inherit a very complex nature, they also come with a few challenges too. Here are some of the common edge computing challenges and insights on how to beat them.
Challenge 1: Managing Large-scale Architecture
Managing any kind of highly distributed environment is difficult. Furthermore, you can’t bug the helpdesk professionals every time it needs attention.
If you try to do it on your own, you’ll probably make mistakes. That’s why it is advisable not to handle things like OS patches, configuration management, software updates, or any operation requirements manually.
How to Overcome the Challenge:
Gordon Haff, technology evangelist at Red Hat says, “Automation and management are essential for tasks like mass configuration, taking actions in response to events, and centralized application updates. A corollary to this requirement is maximizing consistency from the datacenter out to the edge. Standardized operating system configurations and cluster orchestration are your friends.”
Challenge 2: Uncovering the Right Solution Fit for a Problem
To realize the maximum benefits of edge computing, you must implement a thoughtful strategy and carefully evaluate your use cases. Just because it’s in the trend doesn’t mean you should forcibly use it. Use it when there are real problems to solve and not all scenarios have them.
Jeremy Linden, senior director of product management at Asimily, says “So for example, an autonomous car may have some of the workload in the cloud, but it inherently needs to react to events very quickly (to avoid danger) and do so in situations where internet connectivity may not be available. This is a scenario where edge computing makes sense.”
How to Overcome the Challenge:
To overcome this challenge, you can carry out an honest assessment of internal cost benefits for the potential use cases. Later, you can focus on the aspect where performance or latency is critical. Always remember that with cloud, you don’t have to go for an all or nothing approach.
Challenge 3: Building an Ecosystem That Is Yet to Fully Develop
When it comes to software, the fundamental challenges are quite similar to each other – be it a cloud, traditional endpoint, edge node, etc.
In the case of cloud or cloud-native applications, there are solutions for these challenges. While these practices may have reached edge deployments, the edge computing ecosystem is still in the infancy stage as compared to the cloud.
Indeed, the ecosystem will mature over time. But, in the meantime, it still forces IT leaders to show extra diligence for selecting tooling, platforms, tooling or other requirements.
How to Overcome the Challenge:
François Baldassari, CEO of Memfault, says “CIOs and other IT leaders must work with their suppliers to understand what their reliability strategy is, what SLAs they offer, and what tools they make available to IT teams to monitor edge devices on their corporate network. If all else fails, appropriate network policies must be used to tightly control and restrict what edge devices can do on the network.”
