Building up the Edge

Manufacturing is going to find a new normal. And as manufacturers regain traction on their digital journeys, data creation, collection and manipulation levels will continue to intensify. After all, how well manufacturers manage data will play a pivotal role in determining the success of their digital pursuits.

Of course, there are infrastructure impacts to prioritizing so much data. Manufacturers now realize the importance of real time capabilities, which understandably increases the interest in 5G. As manufacturers continue to leverage data it has the potential to change the shape of the network infrastructure dramatically. After all, central cloud models were not designed to handle the rising tide of data, explains Veea Senior Vice President Kurt Michel.

“The pendulum shifts between smarter centralized processing to distributed processing, and each time the shift occurs, an imbalance is created between the data transport and compute capabilities in the center of the network and the edge,” says Michel. “The pendulum is currently swinging from the cloud-based data center model to one placing more demands of processing data closer to its creation point – in this round driven by 5G.”