CIO OPINION

Paul Gampe , CTO , Console Connect , says if businesses truly want to harness the potential of IoT they must consider moving to the edge .

To overcome this problem , forward-thinking companies are now embracing the network edge .

But what exactly is the edge ? And how can it improve your operations without compromising latency , performance or security ?

In general terms , the edge of a network is the boundary between your business network and the public internet .

It ’ s the zone where traffic from the internet enters your private network and vice versa . network infrastructure , which can only process so much data without problems arising with bandwidth and lag time .

That ’ s where edge networking comes in . This is a data management system that supplies digital resources to your users by merging edge devices with your business network to process and interpret data close to the source without the need for huge data centres .

Moving to the edge has become a key investment for businesses looking to deploy innovative technologies such as generative AI because they can now process data where it happens – at the boundary of edge devices – as opposed to in the cloud where latency and security issues abound .

This zone is of critical importance because it defines your network security boundary and is the first line of defence against threats from the public internet .

This includes firewalls , routers , switches , sensors , and other access points that exist at the boundary of networks .

Your network edge exists wherever there is an edge device or ‘ thing ’ that facilitates traffic crossing from one network to another .

These edge devices can include mobile phones , laptops , data centres , company offices , home routers and all manner of emerging applications that will become more commonplace as more users make up the rise of IoT .

Of course , the sheer volume of data produced by these multiple devices can seriously hinder a company ’ s

This not only helps to accelerate business decisions but also gathers valuable information at the point of origin to improve both product offerings and customer experiences .

What ’ s more , businesses can vastly reduce data transfers over external networks , minimising the threat of data breaches while maximising bandwidth usage and ultimately improving customer outcomes .

A well-configured edge network can significantly improve the performance of applications that are hosted in the cloud . By placing edge devices closer to the users of these cloud-based applications , the distance that data must travel is greatly reduced , which means lower latency .

By placing security controls closer to this cloud-hosted data , it also reduces the risk of your private network being compromised by outside attacks .

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