Many of the use cases cited for edge computing also match with conditions of human users in rural and isolated areas, suggesting that we might find ways to leverage advanced market edge computing tools to support computing in remote and rural areas as well.
Consider a few of the characteristics of situations where edge computing is useful, because of:
- Intermittent connectivity (communications network unreliable)
- Localized compute power (unreliable connectivity)
- Intermittent power supply (power grid unreliable)
- Rugged environment (jungle, desert, arctic, mountains)
The one situational characteristic that is not absolutely relevant is real-time decision-making.
The point is that computing architectures are shifting again, from centralized to distributed, in a way that has not generally been the case since the advent of cloud computing. Depending on how computing at the edge is done, we are shifting back to computing by the edge device (PCs with locally-resident apps on the hard drive) in some cases.
In other cases we are shifting back to a client-server model, with user devices relying on a local server in the office or on the factory floor.
The issue is how much network features and devices developed for internet of things apps under conditions of intermittent power and connectivity and more-rugged environments might be applied to computing in rural and hard-to-reach areas.
The biggest issue is that so much of human computing now relies on constant interaction with cloud-based servers. Caching has been a solution for such intermittent connection issues. The new possibility is that techniques developed to support IoT might be helpful for human computing in remote areas as well.
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