ALAN LAU on “ Edge computing and Blockchain tech : the next wave of Internet revolution”
2018 — the movie “ Ready Player One “ was released. It’s about a futuristic world where the OASIS (a virtual world ) has taken over everyone’s lives, because it’s a place where one can become or do anything….the only limit is your imagination. Work and recreation is en-grained to us as social beings. We work to live and we enjoy to reward ourselves and be with peers. The internet, the WEB or the cloud, today is going on overdrive to keep up with the demand for a more efficient, accessible digital world. On August 24 at the Blockchain Summit held at the Hyatt Regency in Shanghai, Wujiaochang , Mr. Alan Lau took to the stage and gave the crowd a peer into such a world- a world without borders or limits. He took the stage and discussed “ Blockchain and edge calculation: the next big wave “. That from the historical evolution of computing models, the rise of edge computing is unstoppable. The next generation of Internet of Things and blockchains need to be coordinated by edges. The application model of edge computing + borderless communication will also become the norm. “Edge computing + blockchain” will be the next wave of Internet revolution.
Alan Lau is an Academician of the British System Analyst and Programmer Society, Fellow of the British Computer Society, Founding Member and Vice President of the Shanghai Computer Open Society, and Mensa. He was an executive at DEC and HP. He also created a multi-layer CS-architecture trading system for the Shanghai Stock Exchange, that broke IBM’s global centralized transaction processing model. His post-employment includes investment and incubation of multiple disruptive IT projects, with a focus on “edge computing” concepts and technologies in the near future; hoping to lead to more innovative technological advancements and business models that span some of the technical constraints in the Internet of Things (Iot).
What exactly is edge computing?
Simply put edge computing is a “mesh network of micro data centers that process or store critical data locally and push all received data to a central data center or cloud storage repository, in a footprint of less than 100 square feet,” according to research firm IDC.
It is typically referred to in IoT ( Internet of things ) use cases, where edge devices would collect data — sometimes in massive amounts — send it all to a data center or cloud for processing. Edge computing triages ( prioritizes the data in terms of importance or priority) the data locally so some of it is processed locally, reducing the backlog traffic to the central repository.
Edge computing allows data produced by (IoT) devices to be processed closer to where it is created instead of sending it across long routes to data centers or clouds. Doing this computing closer to the edge of the network lets organizations analyze important data in near real-time — a need of organizations across many industries, especially telecommunications, finance, manufacturing and, health care.
Why does edge computing matter?
Even in today’s mobile internet era with the use of WEB and cloud computing technology, reality is that processing information can be interrupted or become idle. Edge computing deployments are ideal in a variety of circumstances. One is when IoT devices have poor connectivity and it’s not efficient for IoT devices to be constantly connected to a central cloud. Other use cases have to do with latency-sensitive processing of information. Edge computing reduces latency because data does not have to traverse over a network to a data center or cloud for processing. This is ideal for situations where latencies of milliseconds can be untenable, such as in financial services, healthcare and manufacturing.
