Are any two words more used or confused these days than “platform” and “edge”? Nevertheless, those are the best words (at least for now) to describe StackPath. But let us explain a little more about what we think, mean, and do.
What is the edge?
The edge is a “when,” not a “where.” When data travels to and from an end-user or device to a workload running somewhere in the cloud, it actually has to hop through a series of physical locations, costing time and money and facing more points of failure.
“Edge” refers to the first/last step the data takes to and from the device. That step varies from user to user, device to device, and even moment to moment. For a smartphone being used at home or an office, a WAP is the edge. For that same smartphone being used in a car, a cell tower is the edge.
What is edge computing?
Traditional cloud computing infrastructure centralizes workloads in a limited number of facilities that might be far away from end users. Edge computing, though, distributes data storage and processing across a large number of locations that can be physically closer to end users.
That way data makes few if any hops in and out of those locations, allowing for higher security, higher resiliency, reduced bandwidth costs, accelerated processing, and superior end-user experiences.
