Ahead of Data Centre World Hong Kong in May, Jason Christie, managing director at Geist Asia for Vertiv, discusses the latest developments in the critical infrastructure specialist’s edge strategy
As previously covered on Techerati, both enterprises and SMBs are increasingly deploying compute at the edge of the network. According to Vapor.IO’s latest State of the Edge report, the shift to the edge is being driven by an increased need for low-latency data processing, an upsurge in remote devices churning out data (175 zettabytes by 2025 to be precise) accompanied by limited bandwidth, and the increasingly impractical cost of cloud services.
In the presence of this growing and lucrative opportunity, a raft of companies are vying to lead the market in the various components of edge infrastructure, which can broadly be divided into edge servers, micro data centre housings and power and service resilience. One such company, largely focusing on the latter segment, is US-based critical infrastructure specialist Vertiv (formerly Emerson), which has a core edge product set comprising a VR Rack, PDUs, a UPS and ACS. Speaking to Techerati ahead of Data Centre World Hong Kong, taking place at the HKCEC May 22-23, Jason Christie, managing director at Geist Asia for Vertiv, discussed the latest developments in the critical infrastructure specialist’s edge strategy.
Conceptual clarity
Edge computing is an evolving and complex concept. Sure, the edge identifies the single perimeter around the enterprise data centre network where a growing amount of compute is being deployed, but edge deployments are manifestly different by virtue of the application they are serving. Christie says Vertiv is seeing hundreds of use cases emerging as IoT devices, sensors, machine learning begin to prove their worth in sectors such as retail, healthcare, manufacturing, and across entire cities.
For a company vying to ‘lead the world’ in edge computing, these modalities must be explored for commonalities, so as to clarify the contours of a roadmap. Through its edge research framework, Vertiv has identified four distinct archetypes: Data-Intensive (e.g. smart building management), Human Latency Sensitive (e.g. smart mirrors and display signs for retail), Machine-2-Machine Latency Sensitive (e.g. smart home sub-units) and Life Critical (e.g. autonomous car and medical equipment safety).
“These four archetypes represent and establish the basis for how we evolve and deliver our strategic roadmap and vision,” Christie says. “Most recently, we have followed up our research by outlining the trajectory, impact and infrastructure requirements of 5G, specifically as it relates to edge computing.”