Could the final years of this decade see the much-maligned world of embedded systems finally given the focus and attention it deserves by virtue of the Internet of Things (IoT)…? Pan-European ‘industrial IoT’ firm Advantech hopes so as we now get closer to the edge of Edge computing.
Close to the edge of Edge
There’s a lot of flux in the IoT, we already know this. We are still working hard to question exactly how many resources we put on each device and how much power we empower every IoT unit with. Should we place all the muscle at the backend on the cloud, or should we ramp up the capabilities of each sensor, IoT monitor, control unit and Internet-enabled toaster… and so on?
To start with, should we put more brainpower (memory) on each device? If so, which kind?
Today we know that IoT devices currently in development can sport traditional external Flash memory, embedded Flash memory, Multichip Package Memory and now increasingly we see the use of so-called Embedded Multi Media Cards (eMMC).
It’s all about how much power we put out there on the edge of Edge Computing.
Edge Computing refers to the processing functions processed at the periphery of the network (i.e. out on the IoT device) as close to the originating source as possible.
In basic terms, as components gets cheaper, putting more out on the edge is logical. But this argument fails to hold all its water because cloud services are getting more intelligent and better managed… if not sometimes cheaper too.
How to do Edge computing
So we come to embedded systems company Advantech. The firm’s Edge Intelligence Servers (EIS) claim to accelerate IoT implementation (and allow us to build Edge Computing IoT things) by providing:
- An Edge Computer — that’s what it says on the tin.
- WISE-PaaS software packages — this often means Web/Wireless Information Systems Engineering… but in this case means Wise Internet Solutions Embedded (WISE) – Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).
- IoT development tools — essentially chunks of software creation intelligence.
- Pre-configured cloud services.
- Extra software modules from the WISE-PaaS marketplace.
With it all this, so says Advantech, you can build and launch IoT applications and offer easy-integration solutions.
According to the mystical soothsayers at IDC, by 2019 45% of IoT-created data will be stored, processed, analyzed and acted upon either close to, or right on the edge of the network.
“It looks like Edge Intelligence will be the core value that delivers key drivers for IoT implementation. Advantech facilitates this trend by announcing its Edge Intelligence Server (EIS) with ready-to-run package that includes built-in WISE-PaaS software for device management, centralized security management, interactive multimedia content editor, SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) and HMI (Human-Machine Interface),” said the firm, in a press statement.
This all comes with pre-configured Azure service to help users move current solutions to the cloud, so as to improve operation efficiency and business transformation.
Edge IoT developers start your engines
So will we now see the rise of the Edge IoT software developer? Or should that be the IoT Edge Computing software developer?
Advantech is probably not bothered which way around we structure the nomenclature and naming as long as it happens.