VIRTUALISATION, EDGE & CLOUD COMPUTING
Back to basics Focusing on the dull to power the exciting, Jonathan Bridges, chief innovation officer at Exponential-e, takes a closer look at the core, the cloud and the edge and explains why going back to basics is key to future-proofing our nation.
26 www.datacentrereview.com June 2020
n organisation’s capabilities and services sit in data centres, in the cloud, and at the edge. Working together, this ecosystem forms an engine that powers every move a business makes; each part is crucial and plays an essential role in processes and innovation. Typically, however, when we think of exciting and emerging technologies, it isn’t the data centre or the cloud that we focus on. Our attention – and, increasingly, investments – are dedicated to operations at the edge. In short, edge computing connotes the geographic distribution of the data in question. Edge computing is computing that’s carried out at or close to the source of the data, instead of in the data centre-fuelled cloud. Rather than negating the cloud, edge computing entails the cloud coming to the user. Artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies are good examples of this. We are rightly fascinated by everything from autonomous cars and digital assistants to health trackers and smart homes, throughout the workplace and the home – technologies that have become ubiquitous in everyday life, either in reality or discourse.
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