By Fay Arjomandi, Founder and CPO, mimik
The growth of connected devices is seeing a fundamental change in
how people and enterprises engage with each other in the digital world. But for
this to be truly effective, these devices cannot solely rely on existing cloud
infrastructure that was built to support millions of siloed apps. Instead, a
decentralized approach that fully leverages these devices capabilities is
essential.
Today, all the most popular consumer and enterprise applications
are hosted in data centers. From Google and Facebook to YouTube and Instagram,
this cloud-centric methodology has become essential for enabling our connected
lifestyles. Underpinning this is a hierarchical client-server architecture that
sees most servers located in data centers scattered around the globe. For
years, this has been the optimum way of hosting applications that provide
access to content and information to client devices (e.g.: smartphones or
tablets.) However, new trends point to this quickly becoming a less efficient
way of managing data.
Changing landscape
Firstly, there has been an explosion of computing devices and
embedded computing in all things. This has grown the ‘edge', often referred to
as the Internet of Things, where devices are connected to centralized servers
in data centers through gateways and hubs. However, with edge devices having
more computational power than servers of just a decade ago, the edge is
becoming progressively more powerful.
Secondly, the advent of social media on mobile devices,
orders-of-magnitude more personal multimedia content are generated on these
edge devices. People are creating and sharing thousands of times more content
than what major studios and broadcasters are hosting on central servers in the
cloud. Today, most of the data generated on (edge) devices is sent back to
servers on the central cloud for processing and to facilitate sharing.
The third trend is the decomposition of solutions. The emergence
of APIs and microservices and their automated deployment are contributing to a
serverless backend environment. Instead, the cloud is used to scale resources
to fit demand either through volume or geography.
A new way
The current fixed and hierarchical client-server approach makes central
cloud resources and network connectivity the bottleneck for future growth.
Sending data from hundreds of billions of client devices to tens of millions of
centralized cloud servers wastes bandwidth and energy and it has serious social
and economic implications.
Furthermore, developers are reliant on cloud service providers who
have access to the apps and the data stored or processed in their servers.
Essentially, a handful of large companies have to manage the majority of
consumer and enterprise data. And despite all the sophisticated security
measures, storing data and hosting applications on third-party resources
exposes the owners of the information to risks.
This challenge of exponential growth of computing at the edge, has
opened up a massive opportunity. Enabling any computing device to act as a
cloud server when it makes sense to do so can create a hybrid edge cloud that
scales organically with new capable devices. In this way, central cloud
resources that require significant real-estate and power, and are bandwidth
hungry can offload much of their burden onto edge devices. Many microservices
can be hosted on edge devices instead of being hosted in a centralized server,
making them faster and more flexible to changing user requirements.
Edge power
Acting as servers when feasible, edge devices can perform many of
the functions of the servers in central cloud. This creates a hybrid edge cloud
that is significantly more powerful than the centralized cloud.
For example, there are currently over 80 million Sony PlayStation
4 (PS4) consoles in peoples' homes. This represents more than 600 million
processor cores and 40,000 petabytes of storage. In comparison, this is much
larger computing, storage, and memory resources in the aggregate than the entire
Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure.
And the PS4 is only one type of device. There are billions of
smartphones, PCs, set-top-boxes, game consoles, streaming players, routers,
tablets, and other computing devices that can potentially act as cloud servers.
The benefits of such a hybrid edge cloud architecture are
phenomenal. From reduced cloud hosting costs and communication bandwidth and
latency to improved network efficiency, reduced energy consumption and carbon
emission. Moreover, this new approach leads to increased data privacy and
providing consumers and enterprises with better control over their data.
Software-driven
Cynics might argue that a change as fundamental as this will
require significant investment in overhauling network infrastructure. Yet, if a
software-driven model is adopted, no change will be needed to the low-level
design of edge devices.
All that is required is a downloadable software development kit
(SDK) that runs on top of existing operating systems. No changes to hardware or
operating systems are necessary. Instead, developers have the power to
decentralize the existing cloud infrastructure.
Ultimately, the hybrid edge cloud environment will provide
consumers and enterprises with more control over their personal data, minimize
the cost of hosting and delivery of applications and services, and improve
network performance.
Decentralization is the next revolution in cloud computing and an
essential element to drive the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
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About the Author
Fay Arjomandi is founder and Chief Product Officer at mimik. From August 2014 to September 2016 she was the CEO of a group of mobile companies under Nantworks, including Tensorcom, Nantmobile and Mobile Genomic Health leading the consumerization of health solutions.
Prior to NantWorks, Fay was the CEO of Vodafone xone where she brought her extensive experience and entrepreneurial spirit to Vodafone's new heart of innovation. In September 2011 Fay successfully launched Vodafone xone in Silicon Valley, which became the global incubation center of the Vodafone Group and the beta brand for Vodafone consumer in UK, Italy, Spain, Germany and Egypt. Fay spearheaded the partnership work with emerging and disruptive technologies to enable start-up companies to develop, test and prepare for commercial deployment in global markets. Additionally, her role expanded to lead Vodafone Ventures, the strategic corporate venture capital arm of Vodafone Group. Fay's broad range of roles at the company included being a board member of Vodafone America's Group Enterprise, and being Chairwoman of Vodafone Americas Foundation, an outreach program whose mission is to mobilize communities to resolve shared problems and to enable mobile technology to advance social change In addition to exceptional leadership and vision.
Prior to Vodafone, Fay was the co-founder and CEO of three start-up companies: L3 Technology, Mobidia, and Disternet (now mimik technologies). As a pragmatic technology innovator, Fay has authored 12 patents. In 2018 she received the Concordia Alumni of the Year award. In 2014, Fay was named as one of the most influential women business leaders in Silicon Valley by San Francisco Business Week, and in 2006, received the distinguished Business In Vancouver's "Top 40 Under 40" award presented to outstanding leaders in their chosen fields. In 2007, she was the Canadian technology and innovation representative to the White House. Fay is a highly sought-after global speaker and industry thought leader given her specialization in wireless communications, software applications and protocol development. Fay is also currently the Chairman of H2 Wellness and Advisor to Studytracks.