Cost savings : As seen in the example above, edge computing helps minimize bandwidth use and server resources. Bandwidth and cloud resources are finite and cost money. With every household and office becoming equipped with smart cameras, printers, thermostats, and even toasters, Statista predicts that by 2025 there will be over 75 billion IoT devices installed worldwide. In order to support all those devices, significant amounts of computation will have to be moved to the edge.
Performance : Another significant benefit of moving processes to the edge is to reduce latency. Every time a device needs to communicate with a distant server somewhere, that creates a delay. For example, two coworkers in the same office chatting over an IM platform might experience a sizable delay because each message has to be routed out of the building, communicate with a server somewhere across the globe, and be brought back before it appears on the recipient’s screen. If that process is brought to the edge, and the company’s internal router is in charge of transferring intra-office chats, that noticeable delay would not exist.
Similarly, when users of all kinds of web applications run into processes that have to communicate with an external server, they will encounter delays. The duration of these delays will vary based upon their available bandwidth and the location of the server, but these delays can be avoided altogether by bringing more processes to the network edge.
New functionality : In addition, edge computing can provide new functionality that wasn’t previously available. For example, a company can use edge computing to process and analyze their data at the edge, which makes it possible to do so in real time.
To recap, the key benefits of edge computing are :
* Decreased latency
* Decrease in bandwidth use and associated cost
* Decrease in server resources and associated cost
* Added functionality
