As the amount of data, number of devices, and new technologies continue to increase, more organizations are seeing the benefits of edge computing. According to a survey by Analysys Mason, edge computing is a top strategic priority for many operators — 30% are already in the process of deploying an edge cloud, and 57% are currently outlining their plans to do so in the next year.

The term “edge” refers to an accumulation of multiple devices that allow data processing and service delivery closer to the source. The proximity of this edge can impact the quality of services for the end user, retail sales point, traffic network sensor, mobile phone, etc. With 5G comes the emergence of applications like virtual and augmented reality (AR/VR), industrial robotics/controls, Industry 4.0, interactive gaming, autonomous driving, and remote medicine, to name a few. These applications require a latency, cost point, service availability, and capability to work at scale that simply cannot be delivered via the use of virtual machines running in a typical public cloud infrastructure. Add to this the densification of data resulting from billions of connected devices via emerging applications, and service providers are looking to edge computing to eliminate latency and congestion problems as well as to improve overall application performance running on those devices.