Slashdot Mirror
Edge Computing: Explained (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report from The Verge, written by Paul Miller: In the beginning, there was One Big Computer. Then, in the Unix era, we learned how to connect to that computer using dumb (not a pejorative) terminals. Next we had personal computers, which was the first time regular people really owned the hardware that did the work. Right now, in 2018, we're firmly in the cloud computing era. Many of us still own personal computers, but we mostly use them to access centralized services like Dropbox, Gmail, Office 365, and Slack. Additionally, devices like Amazon Echo, Google Chromecast, and the Apple TV are powered by content and intelligence that's in the cloud -- as opposed to the DVD box set of Little House on the Prairie or CD-ROM copy of Encarta you might've enjoyed in the personal computing era. As centralized as this all sounds, the truly amazing thing about cloud computing is that a seriously large percentage of all companies in the world now rely on the infrastructure, hosting, machine learning, and compute power of a very select few cloud providers: Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and IBM.
The advent of edge computing as a buzzword you should perhaps pay attention to is the realization by these companies that there isn't much growth left in the cloud space. Almost everything that can be centralized has been centralized. Most of the new opportunities for the "cloud" lie at the "edge." The word edge in this context means literal geographic distribution. Edge computing is computing that's done at or near the source of the data, instead of relying on the cloud at one of a dozen data centers to do all the work. It doesn't mean the cloud will disappear. It means the cloud is coming to you. Miller goes on to "examine what people mean practically when they extoll edge computing," focusing on latency, privacy and security, and bandwidth.
The advent of edge computing as a buzzword you should perhaps pay attention to is the realization by these companies that there isn't much growth left in the cloud space. Almost everything that can be centralized has been centralized. Most of the new opportunities for the "cloud" lie at the "edge." The word edge in this context means literal geographic distribution. Edge computing is computing that's done at or near the source of the data, instead of relying on the cloud at one of a dozen data centers to do all the work. It doesn't mean the cloud will disappear. It means the cloud is coming to you. Miller goes on to "examine what people mean practically when they extoll edge computing," focusing on latency, privacy and security, and bandwidth.
It is inevitable that as computers get more capable, these cloud services will become less attractive. Things I want private: Information Search, speech recognition, personal assistance, geographical services, etc.
So they brought back SELECT queries?
Literally like all of my job is getting data from some remote server all in one place then processing it in some way.
I thought the only thing people used Edge for was to download Chrome.
So we've come full circle on cloud networking but now they'll sell the local servers to us?
Reading the article, all I see being described is the idea of going back to local processing and computation. Which, by definition, is not new. And definitely not edgy. Then again, how will I promote myself as an expert unless I make shit up?
Companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google have proven to us that we can trust them with our personal data. Now it’s time to reward that trust by giving them complete control over our computers, toasters, and cars.
There is no way anyone is crazy enough to write those lines in all seriousness.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Because "Client side processing" is soooo 90s and early 2000s!!
(rolls eyes)
A lot of people have swallowed the "container in the cloud" kool-aid by the gallons. Espousing it has the cure-all for all your computing needs. I'm far less enthusiastic about it. I can see it being very useful for many things, but is not the final answer. Unfortunately, I'm dealing with the zealots on a daily basis.
-- Will program for bandwidth
"Many of us still own personal computers, but we mostly use them to access centralized services like Dropbox, Gmail, Office 365, and Slack"
No we don't, lol.
examine what people mean practically when they extoll edge computing," focusing on latency, privacy and security, and bandwidth."
This sounds suspiciously like returning data from the cloud to my personal computer and the pendulum is swinging back again. In the 80's we had dumb terminals, in the 90's we had thin clients and then in the 2000's we got the cloud, all of these things were more or less the same thing. Dumb terminals and thin clients failed because of latency and bandwidth, the cloud will fail because of privacy and security.
Another sales buzzword to lure sensitive data in to the clouds. Slashvertizement.
Well one important difference with the shrinking of computers, more power, as well as increasing cheapness. Is more of them can be used, and networked together. From IoT to routers, NAS, and even game consoles. So this local isn't the same thing as our parents local.
If you want your privacy back then demand your data back. Ask where your data is going with each transaction. Now, for the type of data I have, I trust encryption to protect my data going over the internet, but we've learned that any time we turn our data over to someone else that it's not a matter of "if" but "when" that data will find itself somewhere we would rather it not be.
In today's environment of easy access to home internet with speeds that rival a LAN of not too long ago, it's not hard to control all your data end points. Perhaps that's the new lame catch phrase we need. End point computing. Where everyone controls all their data end points. PC for processing, home central storage appliance for storage and archiving, media center for A/V, smartphone for portable and remote control. I also consider a rented virtual server (from a reputable company) to be close enough to personal property to count, and you can add that to your portfolio of processing if you want dedicated web applications like a good personally owned webmail. I don't actually expose my home storage appliance to the internet, though it's capable of it. I don't trust the security on it enough for that, so I use syncthing on my server for data synchronization and save bulk transfers to/from archive for when I'm home.
Demand you own all your data end points and simply refuse to use any "service" which offers to take care of your data for you. I won't use gmail, dropbox, picasa, or anything which will make it easy if I just give them my property.
If you want privacy, take back ownership of your data.
Next, everyone will discover that local computing actually has its benefits and the cycle will start again. Personally, I have zero hot vapor ("cloud") needs at this time and I will just continue to ignore this insanity. It does affect my work negatively though.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
... that's the reality, corporations can simply force software to be bicycle chained to computers in their offices and warehouses halfway across the world because the fibre optic cables we've layed over the planet has granted them super powers to take products hostage, pre internet they had to give us the shit we were paying for. Post internet they can simply take them hostage and the tech literate adults are trapped hundreds of miles away.
The cute little CEO's of videogame industry for instance basically stealing and breaking peoples games due to the dumbness of the average gamer. You bet DRM in diablo 3 and starcraft 2 wouldn't have been a thing if the entire gaming community was within two blocks of blizzard headquarters. The internet has granted them the ability to just NOT release the game and trap it inside computers in their offices while extracting tribute from our technocratic fuedal society that has emerged because technology undermines market ideology because there is no accountability for an organization that is hundreds of miles away. It's not that the outrage doesn't exist, it's that it needs physical proximity to have an effect on company policies. So post internet we'd need access to portal technology or a radical ideological revolution that gave us access to the equivalent resources of these big companies with bottomless wells of cash... So we could buy the time and travel our asses up their to hold these companies accountable.
Reality is short of that we're living in a new feudal trechnocracy a new serfom enabled by technology and short of ideological change the public will live in a puddle of its own solipsistic capitalist worshipping piss because they don't have the brain cells to understand there aint no market without any accountability.
It's when your computation is juuuuusut about done, but then you stop the processor suddenly but leave the caches full.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
DevOps much like security is a process. Containers usually start local and when done moved to the cloud, and back if needed. Even one provider to another.
BTW Humble Bundle has their latest DevOps book bundle explaining a lot of this.
There are things one can do to preserve privacy. Encrypt everything, use a beefed up darknet, etc. But it's a PITA, and it's too complicated for the average layman. If you're the one in a thousand who does work hard at it, that alone will get you noticed.
Meanwhile, look at all the money spent on marketing, and look at how the Three Letter Acronym agencies want to spy on you, with back doors. Also, manufacturers of equipment are lazy and careless about vetting the security of the firmware in devices, leaving easy to guess admin passwords in stuff etc.
Think of it as entropy lad, you know, 2nd law of thermodynamics, can't win, can't break even, and can't get out of the game.
Everything you say to me
Takes me one step closer to the EDGE
And I'm about to break your network
I need a little room to breathe
Cause I'm one step closer to the EDGE
And I'm about to crash your systems
I find the answers aren't so clear
Wish I could find a way to disappear
All these buzzwords they make no sense
I find bliss in ignorance ....
Nothing seems to go away
Repeating over and over again
Just like before
Thank you for the clarification.
How is this even news? Cloud technologies are pushing control away from organizations. Why would this be desirable unless there was a mandate to "save money"
There is nothing new about this at all, but now there is a name for it,
I wonder if someone could compare and contrast whatever this new or not new thing is, with Hillary Clinton's home email server? Is this just home servers that you don't 'control'/'own'? Sounds like it to me. I'm a bit paranoid but it feels like a clever way to rename configurations such that the home server software market gets to be dominated by the establishment doing the naming, and holding onto their (commercial) home server prohibition which takes Free Libre Open Source Software based alternatives out of the option set for the masses with their lowest cost tier internet service.
$0.02...
There's a swizzle stick in my pee hole.
You are missing the point. The end goal is CONTROL. To wrestle control away from the end user. All control must be ceded to the remote corporation. The Remote Corporation will decide what you see, feel, think, and do.
"The cloud" was a fancy way of duping idiots into stepping back into the 1970s when people did not truly own their data, since it was stored on somebody else's servers.
Those big old servers with their monthly fees were great back then for IBM, HP, DEC, etc but bad for users, so upstarts at Apple, Microsoft, Tandy, Atari, Commodore, etc sprang up and profited by selling people the idea that they could own their own systems, own the software, and own and control the data storage. Once Apple and Microsoft achieved market saturation, they looked back at the companies they'd displaced and started envying the old business model with its monthly fees and [shazam!] "the cloud" was born.
Now, apparently the cloud is not good enough - they do not just want to store stuff; they want to do the processing too (oh, and "accidentally" get ALL your info and even watch every detail of what you do with your data, and potentially profit from what they learn) and so now we have a new buzzword for the supremely stupid and gullible: "edge computing". If you do not control your data then it's not YOUR data. If you do not control your processes, then they're not YOUR processes. If your business controls neither, then it's not really YOUR business. If you wake up one day and realize either that you have competitors who always seem to know what you're about to do, or that your entire business is being held hostage by a "cloud" or "edge" provider, then you'll understand how foolish and short-sighted you've been.
Yipee!
Some people will move their businesses and personal stuff to this buzzy garbage, and others will not be so foolish. Ultimately, Darwinian rules will apply and somebody's decison making will be proven (catasrophically?) wrong. It's left to the reader to guess at which.
Got some stats to back this up?
PCs promised to give computing to the user.
Big business couldn't let go of the power of centralised computing.
We need to loose the server farms and have a true peer to peer computing network.
Go well
What comes next? Do you suppose that someday, we'll each have a machine dedicated exclusively to our own processing needs, conveniently located within about three feet of whatever I/O devices we use in the far future of computing?
This feels like a cycle. The first computers only had a few users who were located nearby, then we had dumb terminals that allowed many people using the same computer, then personal PCs went back to the first model, then cloud computing was the second model, and now we are back to the first model. Maybe this all is just a marketing scheme?
Space Shuttle was a program that strapped humans to an explosion and tried to stab through the sky with fire and math
> Then, in the Unix era, we learned how to connect to that computer using dumb (not a pejorative) terminals
The "Unix era" started in the 1990s with Linux. Before that, even at its greatest extent, it was largely limited to universities and some vertical tasks like workstations and file servers. We're talking a few million machines on the planet, compared to several billion today.
In any event, the period in which Unix was associated with dumb terminals was a tiny, tiny slice of its history. Dumb terminals are far more associated with the minicomputer era than "the Unix era". Yes, mainframes had them too, but the history of mainframes is mostly in the offline-storage era (punch cards and tapes) and its period of use with terminals is about the same as the mini.
100's of Billions of dollars later we have come full circle except this time we are far worse off. Previously we knew where our data was. Centralized computing, growing environments, mistakes were made, hubris, but we were ever moving forward to ever larger horizons as new tech was discovered.
Now that is gone and the profit over all else mentality has wrecked everything. A few hungry hippo corps dominate the channels and they will fight using any means to take as much control away as possible.
It is amazing with all the cyberpunk novels, no one guessed that people would be so ignorant and apathetic as to give the keys to the kingdom away.
The fact that someone would be offended by "dumb" terminalsâ¦. Well that offends me!
CLOUD is just a buzzword for the very old idea of putting your data on somebody else's servers, under THEIR control. It's stupid in most cases. Especially if you are government or a corporation that has your own I.T. staff, your own servers, and your own Internet connection. If you have those things, then you have everything you need to establish your OWN "cloud". I have my own running out of my home that I can access from anyplace on Earth.
EDGE is a buzzword which means offloading the processing to other machines owned by other people, with no control over what they decide to do with the data from it.
Already, we see corporations and governments using your data, to trade and sell and exploit for their own agenda, so why would you just accept "CLOUD'S" and "Edge" computing? It is even more data which YOU should own and control, yet you are turning it over to others. Soon the Microsoft's of the world and the like will claim ownership of the data in your spreadsheets and word documents and databases.
Kool Kids now use Serverless
And that's so 2017. FaaS is the new hotness.
Yesterday's Kool Kids - today's granddads.
I do not need the "Cloud". I have my own server connected to the DSL Modem. A raspberry PI that eats just 2Watts.
I own my files and I do not share it with the Marxists at Google.
SSH does an excellent job at encrypting my files.
DynDNS comes from ddnss.de
You can use ANY computer from a Raspberry PI up to a beefy, power hungry Xeon server to build your own server farm. Nicely and securely connected to the internet using SSH.
Just don't run the MS Bullshit protocols ("SMB", "CIFS" etc). They are a hornet's nest of insecurity.
Only idiots really need the corporate cloud. Whoever can do a little bit of Unix stuff can run their own servers and yeah, you do not need to call it "cloud", even though it effectively it is your own secure version of that.
Remember to get your computer's consent first.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
" Almost everything that can be centralized has been centralized. "
Except for everything that has not, including all the stuff that has not yet been invented and/or computerized.
The internet existed well before these SJW-ridden corporations and will continue to do so long after Google has been merged with Facebook and Twitter.
We do not need to hand our data to these communists. They want to communize your hard won knowledge.
Run your own RPI Server. Be part of the YaCY search engine network. Run your own Jabber server. Use encryption from ZIP to GNUpg.
Show the corporations the middle finger.
Even laymen can go to a local Linux user group and have an RPI configured by some experts at the price of three beers.
Then you are quite safe at least against the corporations. SSH is one of the most secure crypto systems we have. As soon as the server/DSL modem is configured with some DynDNS service, you can use WinSSH to access this server anywhere anytime.
In the beginning was the One Box, with many terminals, and that's what the "cloud" is: mainframes and centralized control. Personal computing died in 2001 when all Intel/AMD chips encrypted the BIOS. "Your" computer isn't yours. It belongs to whomever rolls up the BIOS, in the end. Hacking that encryption is a DMCA crime, and a violation of some contract you "signed", though many will pop up and say it isn't.
If you own a PC made before 2001, you may have a personal computer. After that, PCs and portable computing belong to corporations.
It's been long enough, more than, for a couple of generations to not have heard of any of this. And they won't going forward. This is the aquarium water they breathe.
I recall in Heinlein's "Friday", Friday Jones asked the networked computer she had been using for research a simple question: Who owns you? In a refreshing display of honesty, it refused to answer the question. Heinlein was a deep one.
Christ now I have to learn a new acrobym
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
... they've recapitulated X-terminals with greater network bandwidth and server capability. Oh, and a stronger marketing campaign.
Sending data a greater distance at the same rate requires more energy. Latency is forever and can never be "won". Once enough computing power is local you will keep things locally unless there is a good reason to pay the expense of sending or retrieving that data from somewhere far away.
Information Technology is very susceptible to the Hype Cycle. Thus we get waves of enthusiastic (but rather naïve) adoption of new tech, which generates problems of its own. Then a new wave, claiming to be the Next Big Thing, and solves all Ye Problems of Olde, comes along.
Since it is easier to position a new tech cycle against the old if the new is somehow oppositional to the old, architectures tend to swing between central and decentral in nature. But doesn't this mean that IT analysts and promoters have no sense of history, and how the "new" can be seen as old, and the "old" can be seen as new? Yes, completely correct. Talking about more than one Hype Cycle is seen as greybeard, cranky old man stuff in IT.
OK, having said all that, I feel that I've somewhat undermined my headline. There is definitely hype in IT. Can't deny it!
I can't believe nobody thought of edge computing before!
~Any apparent grammatical or typographic errors are caused by defects in your display device.
Essentially, it sounds like we're slowly getting back to a mainframe type philosophy, where less and less computing is done by the client, except the mainframe is now distributed across a cloud.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Perhaps large corporations are, but what's their source on ma and pa?
I am sure I am not alone is stating for the record that I am NOT "cloud-based" in either my computing, or my data storage.
Let my Stand-alone PC remain unclouded!
Personally, I still can't get behind the current push my M$ to have the OS declared a "service" and no longer a product.
I run Office from my system, and have no ties or reliance upon the net or any cloud service.
OneDrive has been yanked, as has been anything that ties to any form of a Could-Based system.
And I am still functioning well enough, no matter what people claim!
I'll stay in the clear, blue sky, thanks.
managed by you.
As the use of personal grew corporations like Microsoft peddled software applications like Word and later Office to each PC owner, manufacturing millions of CD install discs. Piracy is impossible to control and corporations began looking for other ways. Hosting servers that offered access to office software for monthly or yearly fees solved two problems. It allowed Microsoft to upgrade their "cloud" servers and avoid previous sales or distribution methods for new sales or updates and patches, and, it allowed them to charge for storing users work files. Microsoft had thus achieved its original goals: charging per use of applications, not per application, and cutting down on manufacturing and distribution expenses.
Recent news has pointed out the vulnerability of cloud security, and I suspect that we are hearing only the tip of the iceberg, but that's another issue. The real issue relates to market share. How can Microsoft and the other big corporations increase their market share? By forcing those who refuse to use the cloud to move to it. How will they do that? By bribing (a.k.a. lobbying) Congress to pass laws forbidding computer makers from including internal storage of any capacity, for reasons of "security", or allowing USB ports to use USB sticks with any significant capacity. Chromebook has blazed the trail in this direction.
Future PCs will not be bootable at all without an Internet connection to approved sites. You cancel your "subscription" to that cloud service and your PC is bricked. You will be allowed to transfer to another cloud service only after you pay for a "transfer" fee and a "termination" fee, which allows your current cloud operator to transfer your login credentials to the other cloud. So why bother? Where ever you go on the Internet your presence will be recorded via the GUID stored in your boot prom. Anonymous browsing will be illegal. So will be access to the Dark Web. And it goes without saying that Linux and FOSS, although not formally declared illegal, will never have access to this "secure" PC paradigm.
What to know what politics will be acceptable on this new web of clouds? See what Twitter, FB, YouTube and the like are doing to free speech now. They don't like what you write? They declare you to be a "", and ban or cancel your account for "hate speech".
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
And how did you get so incredibly spineless?
I've seen molluscs with more will to oppose being bent over and fucked in the ass.
Do you even qualify as an individual anymore?
They are a thing in PR and CIA/NSA-like agencies, and likey have been at least since the world wars.
I recently even saw a lecture, teaching it to the newest version of corporate sleazebags.
The main trick that makes it work, just like with any good con, is that nobody (normal) can believe anyone woule be *that* deceitful and manipulative. (And that it would be that big and that old.)
People are living entities that do think and decide for themselves.
Otherwise they are (in order):
- Dronestools (literally), or objects.
See my subject & letting you f yourself dumbass https://it.slashdot.org/commen... you inferior moron.
* Don't try "patronize" me BOY when I can show you are less than ZERO fucker... easily.
APK
P.S.=> Your DIM brains are blatantly inferior evidenced by your FAKE NAMES online for FAKE lives of being "ne'er-do-well" scum having the AUDACITY to even TRY "F" w/ me & ones like you you INFERIOR swine as I cast PEARLS before SWINE like you... apk
In other words, edge computing is low-lying cloud computing. Up next: partially cloudy computing. Followed by fog computing.
See subject SOYBoy (rotflmao) in your UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous "courageous" trolling you "not man" - LMAO!
(You know - I understand your SOYMilk & Bisphenol A "notman" SOYBoy formulas have addled your brains but that takes the cake for "illogic logic" from "your kind", lol!)
* The other poster's not I but they are making you get all "triggered" when you see your addled thinking fools nobody but your sick in the head chemically NEUTERED (lol) selves, lmao!
APK
P.S.=> Classic - one for my bookmarks... apk
control of your servers and data, someone else is. Cloud services are servers/farms you're either paying to use or someone else is paying to mine data on your use. My servers provide my services, which in turn are controlled by me. The DMZ allows access to my personal cloud services. It's not difficult to understand.
"but we mostly use them to access centralized services like Dropbox, Gmail, Office 365, and Slack". Office 365 is managed via the Cloud, but it's software that is installed onto your computer and runs locally, just like it has always been. Google has similar apps that do run online, but not Office 365. Sheesh.
See subject (lol) & the viral hit by "The SoyBoyz": ''If you're going to TransManCisco? Be sure you wear your jimmyhats + bring Preparation H there. If you're going, to TransManCisco... You're going to meet a lot of transtesticle monsters and soyboy not men there. All across the nation: Surgical sawblade vibrations! Surgeons in motion, Sawing peckers + ball off tossing them into the SF Bay Ocean...'
* They're playing YOUR SONG again - hahahaha classic!
(Only way "your kind" would EVER get any notice &/or notoriety...)
APK
P.S.=> Quit projecting your own mental issues onto me... apk