This blog post is intended to shed light on everything that can be discussed in the debate of edge computing vs cloud computing. Before going into further details, it is necessary to take note of how many companies belonging to various industries are making a swift transition to cloud infrastructures.
SMBs as well as enterprise-grade organizations, continue to shift their data infrastructures and mission-critical apps to the cloud. Businesses around the globe spend around 30% of their IT budget to adapt or strengthen their cloud presence. In 2022, over 75% of businesses have at least one system or application that entirely houses on cloud framework, showcasing that a large number of businesses are embracing the trend of utilizing cloud computing with the passage of time.
When we talk about edge computing vs cloud computing, they both offer a range of advantages and applications and can work as a hybrid infrastructure in parallel for utmost efficiency. Let’s get deep dive into the details.
What Is Cloud Computing?
Cloud computing is the computer science approach that offers immense scalability and flexibility for the IT domain to scale its capacity and capability. That, too, without any need to deploy and maintain in-house server systems and network infrastructures.
Also Read: What is Virtualization in Cloud Computing? A Guide
Cloud computing has multiple benefits as it is critical for an organization’s futuristic approach and scalable growth.
What Are the Advantages of Cloud Computing?
The trend of adopting cloud computing continues to show an upward graph. Below are some vital perks that persuade businesses belonging to various industries to implement cloud frameworks:
- Reduced cost – The notable expenditure that businesses invest in procuring high-end hardware, software, and tech team, as well as 24 hours power delivery & overwhelming maintenance costs, can be eliminated by cloud computing. It enables enterprises to instantly develop and deliver high-end applications to the end users, with significantly lower production costs.
- Flexible payment models – By leveraging cloud computing, you only need to pay for the storage or computing resources you are using, enabling more control over the budget without any hidden or unexpected costs.
- Scalability of resources – Cloud computing can quickly expand or contract in terms of available resources according to your evolving needs. It can reduce costs and improve the efficiency of your entire IT infrastructure.
- Hassle-free management – Cloud service vendors offer their clients easy access to IT professionals, enabling in-house to focus on the core business model and free the burden of handling maintenance on their end.
- Instant & automated updates – Cloud users can leverage different technological updates just by changing their plans or automating updates.
- Reliability – In case of any disaster or human error, you can easily recover your critical data as your data is secured on a range of redundant cloud service segments for data security and safety.
What Is Edge Computing?
Edge computing involves shifting computational power physically nearer to the data source, such as IoT or electronic sensors. As the name suggests, it is the way computational power is pushed to the edge or corner of the framework or application to enable instantaneous data processing, better bandwidth, & no compromise on data security or leakages.
By dealing with the data at its origin or source, edge computing eliminates the requirement to transfer gigantic volumes of data to processing centers. This is mainly vital for the latest and high-end apps involving modern algorithms of artificial intelligence & data science.
What Are the Advantages of Edge Computing?
A recent study states that organizations that have implemented edge computing in their development and production environment tend to grow over 45% by the end of 2023. Many high-end apps based on machine learning, natural language processing, and facial recognition using CNNs are becoming a new norm. As organizations around the globe started acknowledging the fact that these modern apps are fueled by edge computing for more efficient outcomes, they started opting for this modern framework to integrate into their business and tech models.
Businesses are Leveraging Edge Computing to Gain the Following Advantages:
- Reduced latency rate: Processing data at the edge of the source ensures reduced travel time and distances for data. It can boost the process of extracting insights in real-time using modern AI and ML algorithms that demand a low latency rate for utmost efficiencies, such as unmanned vehicles or drones.
- Fewer operational costs: Using LAN to process heavy amounts of data allows organizations to leverage improved bandwidth and reduce storage requirements. It reduces the operational costs much more than its cloud counterpart. Apart from that, data processing with edge computing requires fewer volumes of data to be stored on a cloud framework.
- Higher accuracy: The success of ML or AI models depends on the higher accuracy in terms of predictions or outcomes. Edge computing ensures this accuracy by dealing with fresh & live data at the source.
- Network-free capabilities: The network is the prime requirement for cloud computing. On the contrary, edge computing allows data processing at the source without any mandatory need for the connection. It ensures new avenues for computing on remote platforms.
- Data sovereignty: By processing processed at source, edge computing enables businesses to keep their critical data secured without any need to store it in the cloud. As a result, it offers a more secure ecosystem to process high-end and confidential data without any second thought of experiencing cyberattacks or other fraudulent activities.
Edge Computing vs Cloud Computing – Which one is preferable?
Edge computing vs cloud computing comes amid some differentiating factors that help businesses to choose the right model for their organization or the combo of both as per their specific needs. Below are some notable differences that you must know before opting for the right model for your organization.
|
Cloud Computing |
Edge Computing |
|
No real-time and instant data processing is possible |
Real-time processing of data |
|
Requires network connectivity |
Works without any network connection |
|
Evolving and scalable framework depending upon the resource consumption & data size |
No need to store data on the cloud for further processing |
| Data transits and stored on cloud infrastructure in data centers with reliable regulatory and access rules |
Strict and more secure data protection due to the absence of any need for data transition and storage at remote locations |
A use case of edge computing where it is preferred over its cloud counterpart is healthcare robotics & AI, where healthcare professionals require real-time data processing for instant decisions during surgeries or other critical medical operations. Therefore, in the edge computing vs cloud computing debate, edge computing gains an edge over the cloud framework in the healthcare sector by ensuring life-saving perks for the patient.
Choosing One Framework Over the Other
For a range of benefits offered by edge computing, a layman can easily conclude that Edge is the winner in edge computing vs cloud computing rivalry. But is it the rivalry or question of choosing the one as best? Most IT professionals stress the fact that edge & cloud computing do not share any rival ground. Instead, they support and complement each other in most situations.
Simply conclude that functionalities that can be best dealt with in the framework that doesn’t need to split the source and process can be handled with edge computing. Whereas big data apps and systems that depend on gathering gigantic volumes of data before running AI & ML algorithms can be handled with cloud computing.
Combo of Edge & Cloud – A Hybrid Infrastructure
For most enterprises and SMBs, cloud & edge computing integration becomes necessary. Hybrid infrastructures enable organizations to leverage the security and control of in-house infrastructures while also having cloud support from any renowned vendor.
A hybrid infrastructure allows training and development on the cloud and deployment at the edge for faster performance and real-time processing. Hence, there are infinite use cases for integrating cloud computing and edge computing in a unified and hybrid framework.
End Words
Edge computing is not the standalone answer for the modern and evolving challenges faced by the IT world. Therefore, cloud computing will still remain a crucial part of an organization’s IT infrastructure. It can be easily concluded that cloud computing will continue to remain dominant despite more functional or parallel solutions and support edge computing to offer in-depth data analytics & modern use cases for organizations around the globe.