Edge computing is a distributed computing framework that brings enterprise applications closer to data sources. These data sources include local edge servers and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
Some of the biggest drivers for edge computing include customers' quest for better performance and the requirement for shorter transaction times. As a result, there are advantages to bringing these enterprise applications close to the data, such as the ability to reduce latency and analyze it faster.
Table of Contents
1. What do edge computing companies do?
2. Top computing companies
2.1 Amazon Cloud Technology
2.2 Microsoft Azure
2.3 ClearBlade
2.4 Dell Technologies
2.5 EdgeConneX
2.6 Chapters
3. How to compare edge Computing Companies
4. Choosing an Edge Computing Company
Edge computing companies continue to provide solutions to meet the demand for edge computing that is triggered by factors like latency, bandwidth, privacy, and autonomy. Augmented reality and virtual reality technologies (AR and VR), as well as self-driving car technologies, provide key areas of research for edge computing providers in the context of apps' need for real-time data.
These companies are also providing solutions to the increased bandwidth usage due to the proliferation of IoT devices by customizing solutions to improve bandwidth usage and availability. They have also created solutions for use cases in networks where autonomous operation between sensors and actuators is expected even when the connection to the cloud is disconnected.
In addition to VR and AR, Edge Computing offers use cases such as smart homes, cloud gaming, virtualized wireless LANs (vRANs) and 5G, smart grids, predictive maintenance, and remote monitoring.
Amazon Cloud Technologies deploys data analytics, processing, and storage closer to the endpoint, enabling users to deploy tools and API environments outside of AWS data centers.
With Amazon Edge Services, users can create high-performance applications that can process data close to where it is generated. The end result is intelligence, real-time response, and very low latency.
- Amazon allows users to build apps once and deploy them on both the edge and the cloud. As a fully managed service, Amazon extends cloud services, infrastructure, and tools to any local data center or co-located region, providing end users with total consistency from the cloud to the edge.
- Amazon at the Edge, enables users to unlock deep and broad edge usage capabilities. Users can realize to de-create features for specific use cases such as hybrid cloud, IoT, 5G and industrial machine learning. Over 200 integrated device services provide users with a wide range of options to rapidly deploy edge apps and efficiently scale to billions of devices.
- Amazon Infrastructure helps customers maintain high standards of security and regulatory compliance from cloud to edge environments. This enables users to reliably store and process data that needs to be at the edge or remain locally deployed.
Pricing: You can use the Amazon Pricing Calculator to generate an estimate or contact Amazon for more pricing information.
With Azure Stack Edge, Microsoft provides a managed service that puts Azure compute, intelligence, and storage at the edge. As a result, Azure Stack Edge is suitable for machine learning at the edge, edge-to-cloud network data transfer, and edge and IoT solutions.
Azure Stack Edge allows users to run the edge to compute workloads and provide fast analytics by using compute- and hardware-accelerated machine learning in edge environments for artificial intelligence (AI) and IoT workloads.
- Azure Stack Edge users can analyze their data with hardware-accelerated AI and ML for fast, actionable analytics. They can create and train machine learning models in Azure or through Azure Cognitive Services and accelerate results locally using NVIDIA TP4 GPUs or Intel VPUs. Users can also upload subsets of data to the full dataset to the cloud to retain the models to make their edge devices smarter.
- Azure Stack Edge supports optimized data transfers to Azure while maintaining local access to files.
Azure Stack Edge pricing: $402 for the lowest Azure Stack Edge Pro2 (excluding shipping), with the other Azure Stack Edge Pro, ProR, and MiniR priced higher than the Pro2. Visit the Azure Stack Edge pricing page for customized pricing information.
ClearBlade is an edge computing company that enables organizations to design and run scalable and robust IoT apps quickly and in real-time. Whether locally, in the cloud, or at the edge, ClearBlade runs securely and smoothly. It helps organizations consume, analyze, adjust, and make data decisions in real-time and at scale.
Additionally, users can maximize the impact of their data at the edge by leveraging native computing, artificial intelligence, and actionable visualizations from a single platform that can be integrated with any enterprise system.
- ClearBlade is built for security, providing authentication, authorization and encryption for API access to its customers. This extends to tokens and certificates as well.
- ClearBlade provides connectivity to users via MQTT, sockets, and REST. It also leverages pre-built patterns, especially for technologies such as Zigbee (low-power LAN protocol), BLE (low-power Bluetooth module), and Thread.
- Customers do not need to worry about the impact of an internet connection outage as the device continues to run in real-time, maintaining 100% uptime.
- Whether users choose to develop standalone edge apps for their customers or choose to develop on the cloud and push to the edge, CleerBlade ensures that code is available everywhere.
Pricing: while ClearBlade is available for demo, the company needs to be contacted for customized pricing information.
Dell technologies leverage a range of compute, storage and networking capabilities to connect virtually any edge deployment.
Dell offers the Dell Edge Gateway, VxRail Hyper Converged Infrastructure (HCI), and Dell EMC PowerEdge servers powered by Intel Xeon processors. And, the company has edge computing management and compilation capabilities.
Dell has edge solutions in many industries, including manufacturing, digital cities, retail, healthcare, utilities, and transportation.
- Dell Technologies wants to simplify the edge for customers by ensuring an operational environment at the edge. When users expand, Dell Technologies consolidates and simplifies data management and operations, as the trade-off when expanding is often efficiency and simplicity. At the same time, Dell helps users control the limits of environmental latency.
- Dell helps customers strategically reach their edge policies and conduct environmental assessments to create effective programs to produce actionable analytics.
- Dell provides solutions that simplify and integrate information, operations technology to help users easily expand their capabilities.
Pricing: Dell Technologies has not yet published their pricing system, and Dell needs to be contacted for a customized quote.
EdgeConneX is a global data center provider that creates and operates efficient, highly proximate, purpose-built data centers that are tailored to the needs of optimal power, size, and location under any deployment conditions, anywhere in the world.
In addition, EdgeConneX operates at least 40 data centers in more than 30 markets, serving markets ranging from hyperlocal to hyperscale, which are critical to corporate customers.
- Delivering solutions that reduce latency and help customers get closer to consumers, cloud services, networks, IoT devices, or enterprises.
- Deliver high levels of capacity and efficiency for servers and applications by providing high density power supplies of up to 30kW per rack.
- With EdgeOS, users have visibility into all levels of data center operations using a special self-managed application.
- Optimize the delivery and distribution of digital content to ensure an effective audience experience, resulting in better audience retention and customer adoption, ultimately helping to monetize high-value digital content.
- EdgeConneX is actively engaged in user collaboration to deliver ultra-low latency solutions ranging from augmented reality, virtual reality, and self-driving cars to 5G and IoT.
Pricing: Please contact EdgeConneX for accurate pricing information.
Secion adheres to the principles of the new DevOps, providing engineers with the flexibility and maneuverability to run under any workload, anywhere. The platform uses a container-based approach to HTTP traffic delivery and has a large library of edge computing modules. These libraries of edge computing modules are high performance and high availability and can be deployed anywhere along the edge continuum.
Users can build or use their own edge containers as Section helps them deploy existing containerized applications to the edge without downtime.
- With Section, users can deploy to multiple edge locations as easily as to a single Kubernetes cluster.The Kubernetes edge interface helps manage and deploy workloads to the Section Global Edge Cloud by providing a consistent interface with Kubernetes.
- Section's Adaptive Edge Engine enables low resource consumption and high performance through its automated and optimized scaling and deployment of distributed edge applications. As a result, Section users have control over cost, performance, deployment and scaling at the edge.
- Section leverages a composable edge cloud with a network of vendor-agnostic infrastructure providers. This helps users achieve massive scale and ensures coverage, as well as reliability and flexibility.
Pricing: the vendor has shown a pricing model on their pricing page, but you need to contact the company to get a quote that fits the use case.
If you want to determine which edge computing provider is the best fit, it's critical to fully consider business goals and needs. And these should be addressed by exactly the right edge solution. However, there can often be multiple edge solutions to choose from in a single organization's portfolio.
Therefore, when it comes to making trade-offs between multiple solutions, it is important to ensure that they are complementary, not overlapping. And, given the high cost of downtime, the reliability and availability of the chosen solution should also be considered.
Other considerations: the way the provider handles delays, customer service and post-sales support, and budget versus the range of solution options.
This article was translated by a community volunteer from an Enterprise Networking Planet contribution to the US tech press, and represents the author's personal views, not those of the Edge Computing community.