To meet these growing needs, the concept of edge computing has is gained huge momentum. The edge servers bring the computing and networking resources close to the IoT and connected devices. Edge data centers are fairly small, usually between 1 to 10 IT racks consuming 100kW or less deployed for mission critical applications in smart buildings, hospital facilities or smart transportation.
Edge computing is a distributed computing paradigm that brings computation and data storage closer to the location where it is needed to improve response times and save bandwidth[1]. The increase of IoT devices at the edge of the network is producing a massive amount of data to be computed at data centers, pushing network bandwidth requirements to the limit[2]. The recent development of edge has been closely linked with the arrival of the 5G mobile network and includes a variety of use cases and applications as shown in Figure 1.
The need for reduced data transfer latency, higher data bandwidth, and ownership of the data security for time-critical applications (such as video surveillance, traffic management, and autonomous vehicles, etc.) has increased the adaptation of Edge computing. Edge computing has major advantages, such as:
