Alexa, Edge Computing, and the Future of Enterprise IT

While we’re entrenched more than ever in the cloud computing era, the first-generation model of centralized cloud storage and computing has pretty much run its course. Though it may sound strange, most of the new opportunities for the cloud reside at the edge. As 75% of enterprise data is created in branch offices, on mobile devices and by IoT-enabled smart devices, it’s only natural that more and more enterprises are looking to deploy computing power and storage capabilities at the network edge, in what’s known as edge computing.

Let’s take a closer look at what’s driving edge computing, with a focus on the opportunities and challenges it represents for enterprise IT managers.

Edge Computing 101

In general terms, edge computing is an architecture that combines a cloud service located at a datacenter (often called the “core”) with an edge computing device near the end user that is capable of autonomously satisfying a portion of the application functionality.

Let’s consider the simple example of a virtual digital assistant. Present day voice-based assistant devices like Amazon’s Alexa may seem very smart, but actually are fairly rudimentary devices that merely detect “wake words” and then perform the rest of the speech to text conversion in the cloud. Sure, this reduces the compute power needed at the edge, but it’s less than optimal from a performance standpoint.

There are three big advantages in performing the voice processing at the edge:

• Improved response time. With local speech recognition, we are sending text to the cloud rather than voice recordings. This results in much faster response, particularly for commands that can be handled without leaving your home (e.g., turning on the light), as well as queries that can be handled in the background, for example adding an item to your shopping list, or creating a reminder.
• Offline availability. Is there anything more annoying than hearing your Alexa device say “I have trouble understanding” when all you want to do is turn off the light in your bedroom? With edge computing, your voice assistant would always…