Edge Computing for real time applications in Embedded Systems

Abtract :

Edge computing is a concept that has been developed over several years to support IoT
deployments. Edge computing works by selectively moving cloud-compute processing from
cloud data centers to edge and end node processing platforms. Edge computing differs from
traditional embedded systems by leveraging the agile software models of cloud systems. Edge
computing makes use of virtualization and containerization of software to support the
deployment of software than can be continually updated.

With the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) billions of devices are generating huge amounts
of data. But to store or analyze all that data in real time is almost impossible. This is where edge
computing becomes relevant.

With edge computing, we process data closer to the source, such as an IoT device,
an IoT gateway, an edge server, a smartphone, or a user's computer. The idea is to move
intelligence to the edge and let edge nodes/devices do real-time analytics. This reduces
application latency and saves network bandwidth. The architecture is distributed, as opposed to
centralizing all processing in the cloud. It minimizes long-distance client-sever communication.
These are some benefits of edge computing :

• Reduced Latency: For delay-critical applications, the longer it takes to process data, the
less relevant it becomes. Edge computing avoids roundtrip delay.
• Better Security: Centralized cloud systems are vulnerable to DDoS attacks. Edge
computing allows us to filter sensitive information locally.
• Cost Savings: By retaining and processing data closer to source, edge computing saves
on connectivity costs. Data can be categorized and handled suitably: stored locally, stored
in cloud, or processed and discarded. Redundant storage is avoided. Data management
solutions also cost less.
• Greater Reliability: Connectivity to the cloud is never perfect. Edge devices/nodes can
deal with temporary outages by storing or processing data locally.
• Scalability: While cloud infrastructure is built for scalability, data still needs to be sent to
datacentres and stored centrally. Edge computing complements this by scaling in a
distributed manner.
• Interoperability: Edge nodes can act as intermediaries to interface legacy and modern
machines.

There are some limitations of edge computing:

• It requires more storage capacity.
• Security challenges in edge computing are high due to huge amount of data.
• It only analyse the data.
• Cost of edge computing is very high.
• It requires advanced infrastructure.