The Internet of Things (IoT) is growing at a monumental rate, Gartner predicts that by 2020 there will be 20 billion IoT devices in the world – a significant increase from 7 billion in 2018 – and 40% of those devices will be deployed by enterprises. This steady trajectory is changing the way enterprise IT teams are approaching their data delivery methods and demanding approaches that enable resilient connectivity and high network performance.
A commonly known IT infrastructure solution that accommodates the increase in distributed mobile devices in the enterprise is edge computing. By placing compute and data resources at the edge of the network, enterprise IT can achieve the lower latency and reliable connectivity that IoT devices demand. Increasingly, data-intensive enterprises are realizing the advantage of compute power at the edge – and by 2022, 75% of enterprise data will be generated and processed on the network’s edge.
However, as Jon Gold points out in his recent Network World article, deploying edge computing does not mean leaving the cloud and data center by the wayside.
“Yet the cloud and the data center are still crucial parts of the infrastructure, and the huge growth in IoT deployment is having an effect on them, as well. Even deployments that lean heavily on edge compute can stream data back to a central hub for more detailed analysis.”
In his article, Gold explores the implications of IoT on the traditional data center and explains that modern colocation facility providers are honing in on connectivity and networking in order to serve the proliferation of wireless and mobile devices for enterprise customers. Above all else, IoT requires that enterprises deliver ultra-low latency and higher bandwidth capabilities to their end users, and as a result, data centers now need to serve as connectivity enablers.
As enterprises adopt IoT technology and modern data demands require highly distributed, always-on IT delivery methods, IT leaders will need to leverage data center nodes in core markets where processing can occur near the data source. Operating directly at the edge, interconnected data centers provide enterprises with the needed compute power close to the IoT device, while enabling reliable, resilient and flexible connectivity and networking.
To learn more about how Netrality’s interconnected edge data centers enable enterprise IoT, contact us.
