Advantages of Edge Computing | disadvantages of Edge Computing
This page covers advantages and disadvantages of Edge Computing and its architecture. It mentions benefits or advantages of Edge Computing and drawbacks or disadvantages of Edge Computing.
Introduction:
The cost of CPU, storage and bandwidth are significant in cloud computing.
Storage amount of data can be reduced by analyzing the data at the edge whether to send them to
the cloud or not. This reduces cost to the greater extent by reducing storage requirements.
This is how edge computing has been originated. Bandwidth is cheaper at the edge rather than at the
cloud.
What is Edge Computing?
The edge computing is optimization of cloud to move the compute closer to the data source where data is being generated.
Edge computing refers to delivery of computing capabilities of the network to improve performance, operating cost and reliability of applications and services. Edge computing uses nodes where data processing takes place known as "Edge Nodes". The figure depicts edge computing architecture.

Image Courtesy : IEEE
Edge Computing is mainly used for following.
• City Surveillance using CCTV cameras help in identifying traffic mobile issues and
criminal activities.
• The major application of edge computing is IoT (Internet of Things).
Here data originated from IoT devices are analyzed at the edge of network before they are being
send to a data centre or cloud.
• Self driving cars which requires complete autonomy without any human interactions.
• Industry 4.0
• Healthcare and financial transactions due to lower latency.
Benefits or advantages of Edge Computing
Following are the benefits or advantages of Edge Computing:
➨It simplifies internal communication by means of physically
wiring assets to intelligent Programmable Automation Controllers (PACs).
It helps in collection, analysis and processing of the data.
➨It pushes intelligence, processing power and communication of an edge
gateway or appliance directly into devices such as PACs.
➨It helps in determining whether to send data to cloud or stored locally for further
analysis.
➨Edge computing can work without cloud or fog.
➨It is used in systems requiring minimal to no human interactions such as driverless cars etc.
➨It offers very low latency and hence edge computing can be employed in time critical applications such as
finance operations and hospitals.
Drawbacks or disadvantages of Edge Computing
Following are the drawbacks or disadvantages of Edge Computing:
➨It is less scalable than fog computing.
➨No cloud aware
➨It's operations can not be extended to IT/OT team.
➨It can not perform resource pooling.
➨It is interconnected through proprietary networks with custom security and little
interoperability.
➨It is limited to smaller number of peripheral layers.
Also refer Fog Computing architecture working >> and advantages and disadvantages of Fog Computing >> and Cloud Computing >>.
Mobile Edge Computing

Refer advantages of mobile edge computing >>.
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