A paradigm shift for solution architects

Edge Computing: The new paradigm in industrial-IoT

Data is the core of connected industries and society, and service providers concentrate on extracting meaningful insights from them to deliver context and quick action. The critical nature of these systems lies with the extensive volumes of data generated and the need for operators to take immediate and essential actions to improve the quality and cost of their services.

Edge Computing addresses these needs by acting on the data as close as possible to where it is generated. This approach enables significant latency, performance, cost, and security advantages. In addition, by revealing and processing a multitude of undistilled, high-definition data sources, edge computing opens up for brand new applications for insight and action.

Industries and institutions consider IoT an opportunity for the present and the future to digitize many operations and bring tremendous efficiency and economic benefits. But it also has the ability to help global challenges such as to combat climate change and protect the environment.

Edge Computing is the hot topic in the IoT world as it brings data processing, analytics, and other computing needs close to the massive flood of data streaming to and from IoT devices. Edge computing also liaisons legacy systems and current applications, and provides a foundation for new applications, to build a more robust and connected architecture. We find use cases for IoT and edge computing everywhere in our society where sensor data is generated. Examples like predictive maintenance for transformer stations in power grids, fuel reduction for vessels, increased efficiency in agriculture, maintaining bio-diversity around wind-power plants, autonomous manufacturing, employee security in factories, optimizing building operations, availability of critical infrastructure, and remote healthcare monitoring, plus many more.

Walk in the park? Most IoT initiatives stall at the Proof of Concept stage, and often the Achilles heel is the ability to provide advanced platform intelligence at the edge. The bipolar characteristics of edge computing and IoT is:

The data volume is massive. The complexity is massive. The opportunity is massive!

To get the most out of the digital transformation at the edge, we need powerful, resilient, scalable, and secure applications on the edge, fueled by correspondingly capable platforms—this is where Pratexo can help platform architects.

Fundamentally, Pratexo reduces the cycle time to design and deploy complex architectures running on the edge from weeks or months, down to hours or days. It does this by providing architects with a selection of well-understood components and features to configure their architectures and bring cloud capabilities to the far edge. As a result, previously siloed IoT networks can share data on a decentralized basis for the first time, exponentially increasing the effective compute power without impacting latency or network security.

The revolution for building architects in the 1980s was the introduction of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software. This enabled architects to utilize design templates, modeling algorithms, strength calculations, error checks, dependencies, and feature libraries to accelerate design time, reduce errors, and verify compliance.

Similarly, in the 2020s, Pratexo revolutionizes a solution architect´s workday in terms of designing and configuring comprehensive edge platforms, allowing for many years of operation and innovation.