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What Is Driving Edge Computing and Edge Performance Monitoring?

Keith Bromley

There is a fundamental shift currently happening in operational technology today — it's the shift from core computing to edge computing. This shift is being driven by a completely massive growth in data that has already started to take place. According to Cisco Systems, network traffic will reach 4.8 zettabytes (i.e. 4.8 billion terabytes) by 2022.

Businesses cannot continue as usual and still keep up with network performance, security threats, and business decisions. So, in response, network architects are starting to move as much of the core compute resources as they can to the edge of the network. This helps IT reduce costs, improve network performance and maintain a secure network.

However, is the shifting of resources to the edge the right approach?

It could have a negative impact to the network in terms of new security holes, performance issues due to remote equipment, and reduced network visibility.

At the same time, if the network changes are done right, the pendulum could swing to the other side and great there could be great improvements to network security, performance, visibility that take place.

The answer comes down to the deployment of the new architecture. The pivotal tactic is to deploy a visibility architecture that can support the application services and monitoring functions needed. You need network visibility more than ever to: access the data you need, filter it properly, inspect for security threats, and manage SLAs to keep the latency low from the core to the edge.

Two key components are necessary to a successful visibility in this situation — a network packet broker (NPB) and SD-WAN. The NPB provides data aggregation and filtering, application filtering, and performance monitoring all the way to edge devices. SD-WAN services can (and probably should) then be layered on top of the IP-based links to guarantee link performance, as Internet-based services can introduce unacceptable levels of latency and packet loss into the network.

Edge computing deployments have already started to begin. According to a report from Gartner Research, by year-end of 2021, more than 50% of large enterprises will deploy at least one edge computing use case to support IoT or immersive experiences, versus the less than 5% that are currently performing this in 2019.

When it comes down to it, while the promise of edge computing is real, the actual deployment scenario (and whether or not you build network visibility into your network) is what is going to make or break the performance of your new architecture.

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What Is Driving Edge Computing and Edge Performance Monitoring?

Keith Bromley

There is a fundamental shift currently happening in operational technology today — it's the shift from core computing to edge computing. This shift is being driven by a completely massive growth in data that has already started to take place. According to Cisco Systems, network traffic will reach 4.8 zettabytes (i.e. 4.8 billion terabytes) by 2022.

Businesses cannot continue as usual and still keep up with network performance, security threats, and business decisions. So, in response, network architects are starting to move as much of the core compute resources as they can to the edge of the network. This helps IT reduce costs, improve network performance and maintain a secure network.

However, is the shifting of resources to the edge the right approach?

It could have a negative impact to the network in terms of new security holes, performance issues due to remote equipment, and reduced network visibility.

At the same time, if the network changes are done right, the pendulum could swing to the other side and great there could be great improvements to network security, performance, visibility that take place.

The answer comes down to the deployment of the new architecture. The pivotal tactic is to deploy a visibility architecture that can support the application services and monitoring functions needed. You need network visibility more than ever to: access the data you need, filter it properly, inspect for security threats, and manage SLAs to keep the latency low from the core to the edge.

Two key components are necessary to a successful visibility in this situation — a network packet broker (NPB) and SD-WAN. The NPB provides data aggregation and filtering, application filtering, and performance monitoring all the way to edge devices. SD-WAN services can (and probably should) then be layered on top of the IP-based links to guarantee link performance, as Internet-based services can introduce unacceptable levels of latency and packet loss into the network.

Edge computing deployments have already started to begin. According to a report from Gartner Research, by year-end of 2021, more than 50% of large enterprises will deploy at least one edge computing use case to support IoT or immersive experiences, versus the less than 5% that are currently performing this in 2019.

When it comes down to it, while the promise of edge computing is real, the actual deployment scenario (and whether or not you build network visibility into your network) is what is going to make or break the performance of your new architecture.

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The Latest

AI is becoming the operating system of the enterprise. It acts as an invisible coordination layer that understands intent, connects systems, and executes work across complex SaaS environments. Previously, employees had to click through multiple systems — CRM, ERP, support tools, collaboration platforms — to complete a single task. Now, instead of navigating each application manually, they can simply state what they need to accomplish ...

In 2026, the cost of downtime or an outage is no longer just a technical inconvenience; it's a $600 billion wake up call for global businesses. As our digital ecosystems become  more interconnected, each touchpoint introduces new risks and multiplies the consequences when things go wrong. And the data is clear: aggregate downtime costs  for Global 2,000 companies have surged 50% since 2024, reaching a staggering $600 billion ...

Deloitte found that 74% of enterprises expect to deploy agentic AI solutions in the next 24 months. However, the rush to deployment is outpacing foundational work, though. Only 21% of enterprises have fully formed agent governance models in place. The result? AI agents deployed without guidance or governance begin to function as fragmented islands of complexity ...

Cloud spending is no longer viewed as a passthrough IT expense, but as a strategic financial lever that directly impacts innovation capacity, profitability and enterprise resilience, according to the CFO Cloud Cost Optimization Report from Azul ...

As AI moves from generating responses to performing actions, the need for trust increases exponentially. And as organizations enlist AI agents for increasingly sophisticated business processes, trust is going to be the single most important theme for spurring adoption. What can organizations do to build trustworthy AI agents? ...

I've spent a lot of time in the channel, and one thing I keep coming back to is this: a partner program is only as good as what it looks like in the field. Many programs look great on paper, but when a partner is in front of a customer navigating a complex hybrid environment or trying to make the case for AI-powered observability, the gap between what a vendor promises and what it actually delivers becomes very clear, very fast ...

Enterprises today operate in a real-time environment where uninterrupted access to trusted data has become a baseline expectation for users, applications and automated systems. Traditional DataOps models, built on manual effort and human triage, cannot keep pace with this always active demand. AI agents are emerging as the operational backbone, ensuring consistent data availability, reinforcing trustworthiness and enabling a level of scale that manual processes cannot achieve ...

For decades, trust in the digital workplace rested on familiar signals. We trusted faces on video calls, voices on the phone, and emails that appeared to come from people we knew. These cues felt human and intuitive. They anchored how decisions were made, approvals were granted, and access was authorized. AI-powered deepfakes have quietly broken that model ...

Cloud migration was supposed to be a one-way door. For most enterprises, it turns out it isn't. Cloud data repatriation is a real and growing trend. A new survey ... finds that 89% of organizations plan to expand their on-premises infrastructure footprint over the next two years — and 75% have already moved at least some workloads back from public cloud in the past 24 months. The findings point to a broad rethinking of where data belongs ...

Over the past few years, large language models (LLMs) have revolutionized the software industry. Given their ability to excel at multi-step reasoning, LLMs have helped enterprises streamline workflows and adapt to the unknown. However, employing such models comes with sky-high costs, latency issues, and limited flexibility. In the realm of IT operations, it is generally wiser to employ smaller, domain-specific models instead ...