Due to the billions of IoT devices driven by various use cases like autonomous driving, a massive demand for Edge Computing is evolving rapidly. According to the Digital Journal, the Edge Computing market is growing extremely fast. With a CAGR of over 35.0% and the market is expected to reach USD 33.75 billion by the end of 2023.
Source: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/3394129

Edge Computing and Grid Computing are often used in the same context and sometimes are confused. For this article, we’d like to define the terms going forward as follows:

Grid Computing means a computer network of 100% distributed computer resources like processing power, memory, and data storage of similar or different types to which authorized people can run their computation workloads. That means that Grid Compute nodes are mostly in data centers and maybe dispersed over more extensive regions but are typically still far from the Edge. Compared to Edge Computing, Grid Computing environments are owned by more than one individual or company, and thus, controlled by many.

Edge computing has risen from a need to have data processing and storage as close as possible to real-world situations. The situation could be as simple as recording biometric data by a smartwatch to support the required information for a self-driving car to function as intended. The necessity comes from having local computing and storage capacity - it can be used by multiple use cases (situations) but does not have to.

The Benefits of Edge Computing

Edge computing comes with specific benefits that are mandatory for the next evolution in the IT industry. We have optimized the central model to such a degree that the network connects the central capacity to use cases in the field, the next bottleneck. Edge computing is solving several challenges faced by real-world situations with the following benefits:

Speed

Speed is probably the most crucial benefit of edge computing, as there are plenty of use cases that require near-real-time computing.

Scalability

The scalability of edge computing also makes it incredibly versatile. By partnering with local data centers further out on the Edge, companies can easily target desirable markets without investing in expensive infrastructure expansion. Edge data centers allow them to service end-users efficiently with little physical distance or latency. They also do not constrain companies with a substantial footprint, allowing them to shift to other markets rapidly should economic conditions change.

Availability and Security

Traditional cloud computing architecture is, by definition, centralized, which makes it especially vulnerable to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks and power outages. Edge computing distributes processing, storage, and applications across a wide range of devices, nodes and data centers, which makes it difficult for any single disruption to take down the network which is why logically and geographically dispersed systems are often used for DDoS mitigation like in Content Delivery Networks (CDN)

By pushing everything to the cloud, you’re leaving your business open to ISP failures and cloud server downtime. Many mission-critical operations like railroads and chemical plants won’t even use the cloud today. Their server farms are the only way to guarantee uptime.

Process optimisation

Another big benefit is process optimization. If self-driving cars were to use the cloud instead of the Edge, they’d be pushing all the data they gather up to the cloud. But if the Edge makes local decisions, the cloud may not need all that data immediately – or even at all.

Requirements for Edge Computing

When compute and storage capabilities exist on the Edge, we need to overcome several challenges around capacity distribution. Most traditional IT technologies do not allow this as they live in large data centers where there is a lot of “care” for these technologies.

The most significant generic hurdle to overcome is that there is going to be a lot less “care” for the technology to rely on at the Edge. These “devices” have to be self-sufficient to no small degree. If we want to sum up some of the specifics of edge technology, this will come out:

• A typical edge device or node must run an OS that comes in at a low cost or, ideally, for free like some open source offerings. This enhances the proliferation of capacity at the Edge.
• Container technology must be embedded in the OS at the lowest possible level to create the maximum benefit of efficiency from the edge hardware: classic Virtual Machine environments are just too inefficient and resource consuming for edge use cases. There will be Virtual Machine based edge solutions, but these are going to be out there for a certain period, catering for current IT workloads to move to the Edge. The Edge’s correct move can only happen when traditional IT applications split up into pieces and require a lot less capacity to run. Hence, it will convert over time to containerized technology.
• Edge Computing hardware will consist of datacenter grade hardware and all sorts of other types of hardware. The Edge might include some smaller sized data center facilities but also include different types of “homes” for compute and storage equipment. Think of transportation as a specific use case - capacity on maritime vessels, capacity on trains, and vehicles’ capacity. Hardware will have to accommodate different use cases, price levels, form factors, and power consumption.
• Edge hardware needs a lightweight OS that is very close to the hardware components to get the maximum out of compute and storage capacity. Less is more - for real Edge capacity, local people won’t be able to interact with edge capacity - one further step - there will be no need to have remote people access these devices for maintenance purposes. The ultimate edge computing solution will have a significant amount of self-sustainability - where there are no more highly technically skilled people required to keep the capacity available, up and running.
• In most cases, Edge means being remote, and having no access to humans or humans are only too expensive for the specific use case.
• Power outages or no network availability will cause system failures. The ideal OS to deal with this revolves around no people; the zero-touch approach should be stateless and needs to have self-healing capabilities run by automation software robots.
  

Existing Edge Computing Solutions

Today there are a few Edge Computing platforms out there that cover some requirements as outlined above.

• Microsoft, for instance, launched products like Azure IoT Edge and Azure Data Box Edge to extend their Datacenter based Azure cloud offering to the Edge.
• Another attempt to bring centralized cloud technology to the Edge is the Openstack Edge Computing initiative, which is in the concept phase only so far.
• A new OS for the Edge is CoreOs, also known as Container Linux, which runs on nearly any platform, whether physical, virtual, or private/public cloud.
• More recently, there are a few blockchain-driven technologies out there pushing for edge capacity to exist. Examples are:
  • SIA
  • Sonm
  • Filecoin
• Content delivery networks with a lot of “capacity” sitting close to end-users are expanding their capabilities beyond content delivery
  • Limelight
  • Akamai
    
    
    

The Holy Grail

The holy grail would be a self-healing Edge Grid. Edge, because of all the benefits Edge Computing brings to the user: Speed, Scalability, Reliability, Security, Versatility, and Process Optimization. Grid, because it fulfills the distributed workload requirements, a classic centralized cloud would generally be used without a centralized nature and all its disadvantages.

Probably the most critical part of the ideal solution is self-healing. The biggest challenge of an Edge Computing environment is the dependency on local care: humans to maintain hardware and upgrade or fix software components. Self Healing needs to do the job here, which means zero people can be involved.

Only a self-healing mechanism with zero-people involved, completely decentralized, brings down the cost and provides more security to the environment, and makes it highly scalable.

Some of you may think that new blockchain-based technologies may be the holy grail. But they are not.

In most cases, their implementations are too slow, and that’s why it does not make sense to use them for production purposes. Another downside is the complexity of the application caused by stitching together 3rd party technologies. In many cases, these blockchain-based technologies are at a very early stage with beta implementations or even roadmap only type of technology.

The holy grail is something that hasn’t been created before; it needs to be a versatile system that is self-manageable. A large global conglomerate should not own the capacity - it should be owned by many. Therefore, it should have a commercial model where people individually can decide to partake in building this global edge solution and where there is a defined return on investment for those partakers.

A few groups of people, like us, are creating decentralized solutions for this, owned by the many, and creating services for all.

• The Internet is no longer the neutral place it used to be. +80% of the Internet capacity is delivered by a handful of companies. This results in a loss of neutrality and openness and breeds inequalities.
• To support the continuous growth of the Internet and connect billions to new Internet Of Things devices, 400 million new servers are needed by 2020. The world therefore needs another 4,000 large-scale data centers that each consume 200 MWe of electricity: see source.
• Today, about 4 billion people have no access to the Internet due to the high costs of connectivity and capacity. We believe these people have the fundamental right to have low-cost access to digital resources such as online identity solutions, education, health information and more. For this to happen, solutions that can lower the cost by a factor of 10 are required.
• Bandwidth does not follow Moore’s law. The growth of bandwidth required is much higher than the speed at which new capacity can be delivered. This is even more important in emerging markets.
• Current blockchain technology is not scalable and not sustainable. Example: the Bitcoin blockchain alone uses more energy today than Croatia.

Current Internet and Cloud capacity

Today, the cloud computing industry represents a 100 billion dollar industry - mostly owned by about 20 global cooperations. Experts such as Bell Labs and Cisco believe the capacity requirements in the next decade will dramatically exceed existing infrastructure - requiring many more data centers and billions, if not trillions in investments.

The spectacular growth and advancements in cloud computing that occurred over the last decade resulted in large part from “hyper-scale” efficiencies - i.e. centralizing Internet infrastructure in very large billion dollar data centers. However, demand for Internet capacity already surpassed the available infrastructure with emerging technologies such as Big Data, the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Technology. The existing hyperscale cloud architecture cannot cope with this growing demand as the requirements for land, power and funding are becoming outrageous.


The challenges facing the Internet includes the following:

• Trillions of Investment Required. In the next decade, the global Internet infrastructure requires another 4,000 data centers (250M - 1B dollar investment each) to meet demand which would cost trillions - this money could be better used in education, healthcare, or sustainable innovations.
• Impossible to scale the networks connecting users to the hyperscale data centers. Since hyperscale data centers are built in large “central” locations, the network leading to these data centers is congested. Even more, remote regions that are less connected to the Internet cannot benefit from these data centers’ IT services.
• Non-local data and capacity. Governments around the world are becoming more and more concerned about data leaving their borders. To tackle this centralization issue, they would need local IT infrastructure. Also, IoT workloads need local capacity to deliver constant real-time computing and storage requirements - for certain applications and workloads (e.g. driverless cars), latency is not an option. Hyperscale data centers can simply not match these requirements.
• Not secure / at risk of choke point failures. There are plenty of recent well-publicized problems around security, outages and loss of data. The reason for this is that centralized hyperscale architectures are inherently insecure - and failures at a single hyperscale location can cause widespread contagion and outages.

The ThreeFold Solution

Our solution to these trillion dollar problems is to migrate Internet capacity to the Edge (closer to user location) - i.e. a “hyper-distributed” network architecture, located close to users (in cities, schools, offices, homes and even vehicles).

Edge networks will not necessarily replace the existing hyperscale capacity powering today’s cloud - rather, they will scale to meet the increased capacity demands going forward. However, if the current hyperscale capacity can be decentralized to improve energy consumption and reduce costs, this would be a huge global success.

By 2025, 60% of new Internet infrastructure will be decentralized and located at the edge of operator networks by using alternative locations which have stable (renewable) power and reliable connectivity.

ThreeFold’s technology main benefits:

• Security: The ThreeFold Grid is distributed and benefits from our ItsYou.Online identity management platform - making it much more secure.
• Decentralized: The solution enables to bring capacity closer to where users are located, enabling a Cloud at the Edge.
• Sustainability: The technology removes the need to build huge power hungry datacenters and by decentralizing the architecture enables up-to 1000% energy savings.
• Making IT a true utility: We always approached IT as Energy. Today we provide 3x more uptime and between 3-10x more cost effectiveness.
• Neutrality: The solution enables 100% neutral & private Internet IT capacity. Our blockchain technology provides security, neutrality & scale.

The ThreeFold Zero-Node

The Zero-Node provides compute, network and storage capacity to the internet and ThreeFold’s blockchain. This capacity can be used for any possible workload. Here are some characteristics of ThreeFold’s Zero node:

• Modularity: Scaling from 8 vCPUs and 3.5 TB of storage (smallest) to clusters with 8000 vCPUs and 2 PB of storage (large), there is a range of possibilities at hand.
• Sustainability: Storing the hardware uses about 10x less energy, and about 2-3x for other workloads.
• Decentralized: The Zero Operating System (“Zero OS”) is ideally suited for Edge networking - where automation, self-healing and hyper-distribution are must-haves.
  • The Zero-Nodes are deployed as close as possible to the consumers of Internet IT capacity (IoT, residential, business, government, education, …).
  • This results in massive bandwidth savings, we estimate to be able to keep 99% of the required bandwidth locally which has a huge impact on cost.
  • This is the only viable solution to be able to provide internet to the 3.2 billion people waiting.
• Self healing: The architecture is designed to ensure that workloads and data can be accessed at all times.
• Neutral & private: A lot of work has done using blockchain (technology which powers crypto currency) to guarantee privacy and net neutrality.
  • Designed around simplicity to be used by everyone.
  • The technology provides anyone with the autonomy to deliver complex IT applications without the need for complex integration services.
• Empowers equality: Our technology should be usable by the “other billions” that remain unconnected. Due to the low cost-points, low energy requirements and reduced need of backbone network capacity.