Imagine you are watching a live cricket match on your mobile. As the game becomes exciting, you notice, the video keeps on playing without any stops or waiting. This smooth streaming happens because of the new technology of cloud computing. They are Edge and serverless computing.
What is cloud computing?
Cloud computing has been in the market from so many years. Many companies including startups are using it. Some companies are migrating to cloud services. The main reason behind this transformation is the advantage of cloud computing services. Cloud computing is a simple model but powerful technology.
Cloud computing is the latest technology that can store data on remote servers. Businesses and individuals use cloud computing to store and access data. This data can be text, images, videos, or any files or documents.
Unlike the other servers, cloud technology hosts the servers on the internet. So cloud computing is sometimes called Internet-based Computing. In this technology model, the internet provides the resources as a service. So, we can say cloud computing is a model that uses technology over the internet. Companies and people use Servers, apps, and storage that are available online.
Cloud computing can stream audio and videos without any breaks. It can store and deliver software when necessary. We can develop new applications or software using cloud computing. It also helps us to store, create a backup, or restore the data.
But with time, more devices, apps, and services started demanding faster speeds. The rise for lower delay also increased. The increase in live-streaming, online games, etc. demanded a quick response. This became a challenge to cloud computing. Sometimes it failed to deliver a fast response. These challenges led to the introduction of Edge and serverless computing.
Edge and Serverless Computing
In cloud technology, saving and accessing data is from a centralized data centre. All the computing happens at a data centre. In this situation, all requests and responses have to travel some distance. This can cause delays due to the distance of the data centre or heavy traffic in the network. The introduction of Edge computing was a solution to this problem.
Edge computing is a type of networking technology. It manages and processes data by storing it at a closer place to the place of origin. It uses a distributed computer architecture.
In edge computing the data centre is not far away. Instead, its position is closer to the origin of data. The term “edge” refers to the point at the edge of the network, near the data source. This feature helps us to make quick decisions, and understand things faster. It also provides us better experience during live streaming or online gaming.
The Edge technology is currently used in IoT devices, sensors, etc to give fast responses This also helps them to make speedy decisions.
The advantages of Edge Computing are:
- The performance of the application improves very much. This is because the processing is near to the source.
- There is a reduction in the required bandwidth. This is because there is less amount of data transmission.
- Fast data updating in any real-time incidence.
- Edge computing depends on the device itself to do the computation.
- Data security and privacy are high because data stays closer to the source of data. Your computer is the data source in edge computing.
The one main drawback of edge computing is, that it is costly. It requires expensive hardware devices and specialized software at the edge to perform.
Serverless computing
Those were the days when we relied on servers to host and store data. Now, technology has developed new methods that drop the need for servers for hosting. Serverless computing achieves this.
Serverless computing allows us to run applications without managing a server. In the traditional method, the user has to set up the physical server to run the application. He is responsible to manage and maintain them. But in serverless computing, the cloud provider takes care of all this works for you. You only pay for the services you receive from the cloud computing company.
Serverless computing is also known as Function-as-a-Service. In this computing, the developers write individual functions or code. But they do this without managing the underlying structure. The user uploads the functions. Execution of this code happens as a response to the triggers or events. This makes serverless computing a flexible and efficient technology. Nowadays, both stateless and stateful applications use this computing technology.
The advantages of serverless computing are: –
- It is a cost-effective method. This makes online businesses use this in their business.
- There is no need to manage the servers in this. So, developers deploy and update applications quickly.
- Many web applications run on this. Examples are major payment gateways and live streaming.
Both edge and serverless computing are expected to grow more in the future. Now more businesses and companies are relying on real-time data and fast processing. This makes these technologies to become an essential one. Companies are developing and improving this technology by integrating AI into this. If they Integrate AI, this technology will become smarter, and more efficient. AI will help to unlock more potential in these two technologies.
Serverless Edge Computing
The combined effects of serverless and edge computing will be the trending technology in 2025. In this new computing, without managing the servers, processing is at the edge of the network. The after-effect of combining these two is faster response time with low latency. So IoT devices sensors, live streaming, or online gaming can use these services. They can avail the benefits of the two technologies at the same time. It also reduces the data transmission rates because the data is near the data source.
One of the main challenges will be distributing computers across many edges. It can cause the security issues of data.
Future
The future of serverless, edge, and the combination of serverless-edge computing is promising. Many businesses and companies will adopt this technology. Integration of AI will make this computing faster, and more reliable. The increase in IoT devices, self-driving cars, and live streaming makes us adapt this in our lives.
Conclusion
Edge, serverless, and serverless edge is the trending technology in Cloud computing. These computing methods reduce the challenges of traditional cloud technology. Edge and serverless computing have their challenges. Now, the programmers have developed the combined form- serverless-edge computing. This new computing method can overcome individual challenges. Research is taking place to integrate AI in more areas of computing. That will be a major advancement in the field of cloud computing.
