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Contributed on May 12, 2020

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Edge Computing: Part I – Use cases, start-ups, GTM

Blog: NASSCOM Official Blog

Post releasing its whitepaper “Edge Computing-Towards A More Distributed Future” in Dec-2019, NASSCOM conducted a webinar on this topic on Apr 16, 2020 wherein the panellist covered topics on use cases of edge, deployment & post deployment challenges, technologies shaping edge computing, business opportunities, monetising edge, talent, etc.

We had close to 700 registrations for this webinar and while the panellists were able to address a few questions during the Q&A, we could not cover many due to paucity of time.

The panellists felt a lot of these questions important enough and so they have taken time out to share their responses.

I have consolidated these responses and am posting them in two parts:

• Part I: Will cover questions on Use cases, Start-ups, Go-To-Market
• Part II: Cost & security, Standards, Technical

This is the first of the two posts.

USE CASES

1. Are there any edge applications currently for Simulations or Digital Twins, mainly related to the manufacturing industry?

There are various use cases applicable for Digital Twins:

• Operator Twin: For supporting operators with training and immersive experience and providing contextual information for standard/non-standard events
• Maintenance Twin: For analysing and recommending maintenance notifications/alerts (predictive failure alerts and prescriptive recommendations)
• Diagnostic Twin: For analysing the root-causes and providing diagnostic information to specific failures
• Design Twin: For machines/equipment and products for concept generation, design improvements and altering products, simulating design compatibility
• Visual and Operational twins: For enabling remote monitoring and operational twins for ensuring operational performance & optimization of complex equipment & process
• Process Twin: For enabling and mapping interactions between discrete and/or connected elements or entities in process plants, logistic networks, facilities, mining yards, railway networks etc. for operational efficiency improvement, track and trace, optimization, providing contextual decisions or extracting policies etc.

To run these on edge, there are digital twin and simulation software specific tools. Some examples include: Aveva Sim-psi, Matlab, Simulink, Arena, Robocad, Comsol, ANSYS, Modelica, R, Python, MSC software, MS Azure Edge, FogHorn, AWS GreenGrass, Creo, AutoDesk Maya, Unity3D, UnReal Engine, Anylogic, CADLM, ADAMS, Amesim, SimulationX, and Hololens

2. Can I relate EDGE with TataSky Set top box? Can you give a brief about its architecture, in terms of what is there in EDGE and Cloud? How is the CICD Pipeline, etc.? How are set top boxes monetising this opportunity?

A set-top box is a hardware device that allows a digital signal to be received, decoded and shown on TV. Here we can think of TV as Edge device, Set top box as the Edge gateway that acts as converter between the channel service provider and the consumer. The edge would be the TV and the set-top box; the cloud would be the service provider location/content provider location. The set top box has OS and drivers which need updates and this can be done Over The Air (OTA). The CICD pipeline can be envisioned as the process that pushes the OS and driver updates from manufacturer to multiple set top devices.

SMEs & STARTUPS

3. How do we implement edge based solutions for SMEs who cannot afford to buy cloud infrastructure or some customer who already has a data centre setup? Any recommendations here?

Single approach (Edge vs. Cloud vs. Data Centre) will not cater to the diverse kinds of application requirements needed.

Decision to host application on cloud vs. edge vs. data centre is not entirely dependent on affordability or capital expenditure. It depends on following parameters:

• Business / Environmental requirements: Use Case, geography spread, Total cost of ownership (TCO), compliance needs, etc.
• Technical requirements: Latency requirements, bandwidth, communication link constraints
• Non–functional requirements: Security, high availability, operational governance

Choice of deployment for Application hosting varies based upon use case & technical requirements.

Total Cost of Ownership depends on various factors such as communication bandwidth, infrastructure cost, connectivity cost & operational expenditure.

Here are some guidelines for choosing choice of application hosting deployment models:

• When use case requires time critical, low latency processing close to source of data, then choose edge based solution
• When use case requires frequent scale up / scale down, high availability, quick time to deployment, cloud based hosting model is ideal
• For business critical, data conservative & data sensitive application, datacentre approach is suitable

Datacentre / Cloud Infrastructure cost can be made affordable through partnerships, consortiums, etc.

4. Are you currently working with startups in edge computing and how does engagement typically work from GTM perspective?

Yes, we (AlefEdge) are working with many startups. They can consume AlefEdge platform and build Edge native/Edge enhanced applications by consuming available API’s. These Edge native/enhanced applications will lead to new monetization opportunities.

We are also exploiting alternate revenue opportunities by allowing our partners to build their own vertical consumer and enterprise applications and create differentiated revenue opportunities.

We have a revenue share based unique business model that helps our partners to launch these applications quickly and at scale without the need of committing upfront payments to Alef.

GO-TO-MARKET

5. How will you sell edge to enterprises? What is the financial gain to end clients? Can you give an example?

Edge will be sold as a service model to enterprises wherein an enterprise will pay per user per month for consumption of different Edge services. Considering that the edge platform is highly coveted in the market, we have monetized that platform by working on cloud layer and vertically by building our own edge applications. The revenue model for services is a revenue share with the ecosystem – depending on the ecosystem. The financial gain can be multiple like creating new revenue streams, building mission critical applications which require ultra-low latency/ultra-high bandwidth/on-premise security benefits, etc.

6. What is the applicability in the current scenario of COVID-19?

We covered certain aspects of this in the Webinar. As self-isolation measures demand more and more offices, schools and entertainment onto the web, existing networking infrastructures’ ability to handle the sudden surge in bandwidth is being put to the test. Edge computing applications will begin widespread adoption and will be a timely and potentially a permanent solution. Augmented reality use cases for remote support, AI virtual assistance are some of the sample use cases that will be need of the hour and will highly benefit from edge computing adoption.

7. Are the carriers collaborating by sharing channel licenses (wireless)?

There are few models in use for spectrum sharing:

• Spectrum sharing among two carriers to improve the coverage of services
• Carrier can share two technologies (for example 4G & 5G services) on the same spectrum
• Spectrum sharing administered by FCC–Authorized Shared Access (ASA) model – For example, FCC allowed 3.5GHz band for shared access through CBRS. The incumbent Department of Defence is given a priority for use while the spectrum can be shared
• Mobile Virtual Network Operator(MVNO) provide services using carrier resources (spectrum and network) without owning spectrum

Contributors:

• Lekha Sudhir Menon, Lead – Intelligent Edge CoE, Cognitive Business Operations, Tata Consultancy Services
• Anjali Deo, CTO IOT Group, Cognizant
• Neelakantan Venkataraman, Chief Business Officer, APAC, AlefEdge
• Vinod Eswaraprasad, Chief Architect and Practice Head of Software Engineering-Industrial and Engineering Services, Wipro

Disclaimer: Views and opinions expressed here are personal and do not reflect the official view of the respective companies

I hope you are finding my blogs in the Edge Computing series interesting. Please do share your comments and areas of interests with me at: diksha@nasscom.in

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