Skip to Content
Architecting for Scale, 2nd Edition
book

Architecting for Scale, 2nd Edition

by Lee Atchison
March 2020
Intermediate to advanced
266 pages
6h 34m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Architecting for Scale, 2nd Edition

Chapter 19. Edge Computing

What, exactly, is the edge? The edge is monitoring weather and drought conditions on a farm to ensure optimal crop production. The edge is an automated drone, flying solo, taking photographs or gathering environmental or geographical data. The edge is a semitruck transmitting information about where it is, its load, and its operating condition to a central transportation system. The edge is a smart home appliance that automatically knows when you are running low on something and assists you with ordering more. The edge is a smart home that monitors and keeps us safe, such as by shutting off a stove when a fire is detected or turning on an alarm when it knows you are no longer at home.

All of these are examples of edge computing. Each is an example of a novel use in and of itself. When we think about edge computing, these are the sorts of examples that come to mind. But what exactly is edge computing? Edge computing is taking part of your application and moving it closer to where the action is.

What do we mean by “the action”? By “the action,” we mean the source of interesting data that you want to process. This might be the end user of the application or the system being controlled. Or it might be the thing at the end of your application that represents the reason your application exists…the thing it was designed and built for.

Edge computing is about putting computation close to the need for that computation. Edge computing is, quite simply, putting ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Learning Spark, 2nd Edition

Learning Spark, 2nd Edition

Jules S. Damji, Brooke Wenig, Tathagata Das, Denny Lee
Head First Design Patterns, 2nd Edition

Head First Design Patterns, 2nd Edition

Eric Freeman, Elisabeth Robson
Release It!, 2nd Edition

Release It!, 2nd Edition

Michael T. Nygard

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781492057161Errata Page