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Is Your IT Support What It Should Be?

January 24, 2023/in Blogs/by Wingman

The modern world has changed as a result of revolutionary technology. Technology is continuously changing, and it is thanks to this progress that both our personal and professional life are now easier and much more connected than they ever were. Businesses all around the world are gradually integrating technology into every aspect of their operations, some without even realising it. Whether it’s a small family-run company or a huge multinational behemoth, tech is having an impact.

The use of the proper tools and, more importantly, the appropriate amount of support for those tools’ use, could not be more crucial today, as technology is perhaps the most vital component of a successful business.

The influx of business technology has led to an explosion in IT support companies, and aspiring business owners have seen an opportunity. The majority of these companies make outrageous claims like, “We give the best support,” “We approach your IT landscape proactively,” or “We cater our service to you.” How can you even define “the best” IT support? How is it measured? The answer unquestionably depends on the goals you have for IT.

One widespread misunderstanding about IT support is that it is just support. Contrary to the name, it isn’t any longer only support. Yes, there was a period when that was what it meant, but it was only because technology hadn’t advanced enough to meet everyone’s requirements. There was no chance of making future plans. The IT was functional, but that was about the best you could hope for as you had to adapt your business to fit within its constraints rather than the other way around. Fortunately, we can now tailor our IT support plans to each client rather than forcing them to adjust to IT’s requirements.

Modern IT support should do more; it should be tailored to your business and change to meet your demands. The IT professionals who handle your account ought to be concerned; they ought to exert every effort to join your team and work hard to assist you in achieving your business objectives with the aid of cutting-edge technology.

What can a competent IT support professional do for you?

Show interest with proactivity

An IT organisation needs to take a proactive stance. They should be genuinely interested in your company’s future and want to know about its past. When they only seem to show interest or offer any support when an issue develops, the majority of IT suppliers behave more like an insurance provider than a partner. By demonstrating interest, they will be able to plan for the worst-case situation in a way that best suits your particular management style and, consequently, your entire organisation. How can they accomplish that if they are unaware of how your business is actually operated on a daily basis? Since every company in the world is unique, why are we all given the same treatment?

A proactive approach enables you to anticipate situations far more successfully; in the event of an issue that could define your organisation, you and your team will be ready—or at the very least, have developed a plan to keep your team operating. Strategically aligned IT, combined with IT support that reflects it, is crucial because being able to foresee problems prevents small ones from growing into large ones.

Allow for unlimited calls

Any IT provider who restricts the number of calls you are permitted to make to them should be ignored right away. How could you possible foresee how frequently you may need assistance or when that assistance may be required? The premise alone is absurd. If you knew that, you wouldn’t ever require help in the first place.

Effective communication

Tech-savvy people aren’t always the best communicators; while this doesn’t diminish their technical expertise, it does have an impact on the level of service they can provide. Your IT environment, as well as your provider’s relationship, could suffer from inadequate levels or quality of communication. If they don’t accomplish these things, you have little chance of being ready for any potential problems. They must be in continual touch with you, show interest in your future plans, and discuss with you any concerns they have about the general technology landscape of your firm. You won’t even get this far if there is bad communication from the beginning since how else would they be able to understand your worries and goals, let alone assist you in resolving them?

You’ll communicate with the right providers frequently. Of course, don’t anticipate a call every day; a call once a month will do. They must make a concerted effort to learn about you, your team, your company’s operations in general, its history, and your long-term goals.

The top support providers will not only become technically familiar with your company; they will also want to know what makes it successful, what operational issues can jeopardise it, the difficulties you have on a daily basis, and what they can do to assist.

Service Level Agreement (SLA)

An SLA is crucial because it outlines the criteria you and the service provider agree upon and outlines the guarantees they provide regarding the service. Take your time to discuss things with potential providers; don’t just accept the first contract that is presented to you. Each supplier has a comparatively unique product.

If the article has the desired effect, it will arm you with the knowledge to make a revised decision about what is best for you, your team, and the future success of your business. The following article will be a checklist of what to look out for in an IT provider, outlining what to look out for on potential providers’ websites.

Need to change IT Support provider?

If you are unsure about any of these areas then please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. Our experts here at 4TC can help you with your IT Support or any other technical queries.

Buying the Best Tools for Remote Working – Secure Remote Access

January 18, 2023/in Blogs/by Wingman

At the height of the pandemic, 49% of UK workers found themselves working remotely at least one day per week. The same figure for 2019 stood at just 12%, illustrating the dramatic culture change that was forced upon workplaces across the country.

Today, whilst many of us have returned to the office on a permanent basis, 22% of employees continue to work remotely at least one day per week, and 11% (roughly one in eight) report working from home exclusively: proof that the concept can endure when correctly implemented.

With benefits ranging from improved employee retention and enhanced work-life balance to reduced pressure on office space and a reduction in costly commutes, enabling remote work can be advantageous for employers and employees alike. However, to ensure your remote team remains motivated and productive it’s vital that they have access to the right tools and services.

At the heart of a workable remote working strategy is a means by which to provide secure, unhindered access to the data and services your remote team need, a concept known as ‘secure remote access.’ In this article we’ll look at some of the most popular options for providing secure remote access with consideration given to the advantages and drawbacks of each solution.

Remote Access Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)

Virtual Private Networks are one of the most popular ways to grant geographically dispersed employees access to corporate resources. VPNs can be configured to allow remote employees to access resources such as email services, enterprise software (scheduling tools, project management tools, CRMs etc) and data vaults without compromising the security of sensitive information.

A VPN extends the privacy afforded by an on-premise network to remote employees by encrypting all transiting data. Authorised end users log into the VPN using a client portal on their endpoint device and this establishes a protected, private connection between the user and the internal network, ensuring sensitive data is kept safe from prying eyes.

Advantages of Remote Access VPNs

24/7 Access to resources and data. Remote access VPNs provide round-the-clock access to resources. All that is required is an approved device and a dependable internet connection.
Heightened Security. Remote access VPNs shield sensitive data against malicious interception. Particularly important when access resources using insecure networks such as public WiFi.
Affordable for small businesses. With services offered on a per-user subscription basis, remote access VPNs are a cost-effective way to grant secure remote access to employees, with the ability to scale up and scale down provision in line with demand.

Disadvantages of Remote Access VPNs

Careful management is required. Client software must be installed on every approved endpoint device, and must be regularly updated to ensure a high standard of security. Care must also be taken to ensure account credentials don’t fall into the wrong hands, as these could grant a hacker access to multiple network services in one fell swoop.
High Latency (cloud-hosted VPNs). While affordable and convenient, cloud-hosted remote access VPN services can result in high data transfer latency if the service’s NAS (network-attached storage) is located a considerable distance from the company’s internal network.

Remote Desktops

Remote Desktop setups allow remote users to take command of a specific, office-based computer via an active internet connection. IT support is a common application of such technology, allowing technicians to diagnose issues and apply fixes to a machine without having to be physically present.

Using a client application installed on the remote device, users can access files and applications stored on an elected ‘host’ device as though they were sitting in front of it, with the service transmitting mouse and keyboard inputs from the client device to the host. In addition to desktop PCs, Remote Desktops can also be used to access servers and virtual server environments.

Advantages of Remote Desktops

Cheap and Effective. Remote desktop services are a very affordable way to enable remote access to office-hosted apps and data. The setup requires no hardware to operate and services often feature encrypted connections for greater security.
Familiarity. Remote desktops allow remote workers to access files and services via the desktop interface they’re familiar with.

Disadvantages of Remote Desktops

The host machine must be turned on. The machine being accessed must be on and remain on for the duration of the session. It also cannot be used by another employee whilst the remote connection is active.
‘Data-heavy’ activities may perform poorly. Data-intensive activities such as video editing or graphic work may be clunky and unresponsive.

SD-WAN

While SD-WAN (Software-defined wide area network) is most often associated with medium to large companies seeking to connect multiple branch offices to their headquarters, the technology is increasingly being used to keep remote workers connected to the cloud-hosted and on-premise resources they need access to.

Wide area network (WAN) connections extend corporate networks over a large geographical area using numerous connectivity technologies, including MPLS, wireless data connections, broadband, VPNs and the internet, allowing employees to access the resources they need from any location. SD-WANs feature software which monitors the quality of these connections, ensuring data is routed via the most reliable and efficient pathway at all times.

SD-WANs not only connect remote users with office-hosted apps and data, they also link to cloud-hosted services including trusted SaaS providers for a full-optimised remote access experience often backed by SLA-defined performance level guarantees.

Advantages of SD-WAN

Reliability. Because SD-WAN can route data via multiple connectivity pathways, there are almost always several failover options should one fail.
Improved network performance. Software routes traffic via the most efficient connection for reduced latency, improved application performance and a superior end-user experience.
Centralised management. Network managers benefit from a central command point known as an ‘SDN controller’ for convenient routing and policy management.

Disadvantages of SD-WAN

Security. An SD-WAN should be supported by an array of security apparatus to protect the network form external threats. Intrusion on one machine could spread network-wide without the necessary precautions.
Can be difficult and expensive to support. Setting up and maintaining SD-WAN solutions requires technical expertise that can place a heavy burden on small internal teams and contracting-in such support can often be expensive.

Software-as-a-service (SaaS)

Over the last decade, the ‘Cloud’ has transformed the way businesses access IT services and launch new tech projects, with software, infrastructure and development platforms accessible on a subscription basis via cloud service providers. Today, the Software-as-a-service marketplace features enterprise software for almost any conceivable business function, from marketing and HR to accounting and sales.

Cloud-hosted software combined with cloud storage can be a convenient, secure and low-hassle way to give remote employees access to the apps and data they need.

Microsoft 365 is perhaps the pre-eminent SaaS offering, featuring a broad suite of tools designed to empower remote workforces.

Advantages of SaaS

Scalability. Unlike conventional software where upscaling might involve provisioning additional server capacity and acquiring additional licenses, SaaS providers typically allow new users to be added in a few clicks for a small additional monthly fee.
Cross-platform integrations. Outdated legacy applications often leave data segregated, resulting in time-consuming and inefficient data handling. Today’s SaaS offering often feature extensive cross-platform integration and the ability to automate workflows across services for improved workplace productivity.
Low-cost access to the best enterprise software. The SaaS model offers a compelling value proposition compared to traditional software licensing, with services often able to be provisioned for a single end user for a modest monthly fee.
Zero Maintenance. SaaS providers maintain the software and ‘push’ new features and upgrades to users automatically. This reduces the management burden for internal IT teams.

Disadvantages of SaaS

Lack of customisability. Compared to custom in-house applications and even locally-hosted proprietary software, SaaS products offer very little in the way of customisation potential.
Data security remains your responsibility. While SaaS providers are responsible for maintaining the integrity and accessibility of their service, they are not responsible for the security of the data you store on it. Using a backup service to safeguard cloud-hosted apps and data is advisable, as is the use of secure authentication methods and antivirus protections to further safeguard data being accessed remotely.

New Materials Will Bring the Next Generation of Quantum Computers

January 18, 2023/in Blogs/by Wingman

The technology is primed to become faster, more versatile, and thankfully cheaper.

Technologies enabled by quantum science will help researchers better understand the natural world and harness quantum phenomena to benefit society. They will transform health care, transportation, and communications, and enhance resilience to cyber threats and climate catastrophes. For example, quantum magnetic field sensors will enable functional brain imaging; quantum optical communications will permit encrypted communications; and quantum computers will facilitate the discovery of next-generation materials for photovoltaics and medicines.

Currently, these technologies rely on materials that are expensive and complicated to prepare, and they often require expensive and bulky cryogenic cooling to operate. Such equipment relies on precious commodities such as liquid helium, which is becoming increasingly costly as the global supply dwindles. 2023 will see a revolution in innovations in materials for quantum, which will transform quantum technologies. Alongside reducing environmental demands, these materials will allow for room-temperature operation and energy saving, as well as being low-cost and having simple processing requirements. To optimize their quantum properties, research labs can manipulate chemical structure and molecular packing. The good news is that physicists and engineers have been busy, and 2023 will see these materials moving from science labs to the real world.

Recently, the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council announced a vision for innovation in materials for quantum technologies, led by Imperial College London and the University of Manchester. The London Centre for Nanotechnology—a collaboration of hundreds of researchers across Imperial, King’s and University College London—has considerable expertise in the simulation and characterization of quantum systems. The UK’s home for measurement—the National Physical Laboratory—just opened the Quantum Metrology Institute, a multimillion-pound facility dedicated to the characterization, validation, and commercialization of quantum technologies. Working together, researchers and industry will usher in a new era in pharmaceuticals, cryptography, and cybersecurity.

Qubits, the building blocks of quantum computers, rely on materials with quantum properties, like electron spin, which can be manipulated. Once we can harness these properties, we can control them using light and magnetic fields, creating quantum phenomena such as entanglement and superposition. Superconducting qubits, the current state-of-the-art for qubit technology, comprise Josephson junctions that operate as superconductors (materials that can conduct electricity with zero resistance) at super-low temperatures (–273ºC). The harsh temperature and high-frequency operation requirements mean that even the most basic aspects of these superconducting qubits—the dielectrics—are tricky to design. At the moment, qubits include materials like silicon nitride and silicon oxide, which have so many defects that the qubits themselves have to be millimeter-sized to store electrical field energy, and crosstalk between adjacent qubits introduces considerable noise. Getting to the millions of qubits required for a practical quantum computer would be impossible with these materials.

2023 will see more innovation in the design of materials for quantum technologies. Of the many awesome candidates considered so far (e.g., diamonds with nitrogen vacancy defects, van der Waals/2D materials, and high-temperature superconductors), I’m most excited about the use of molecular materials. These materials are designed around carbon-based organic semiconductors, which are an established class of materials for the scalable manufacture of consumer electronics (having revolutionized the multibillion-dollar OLED display industry). We can use chemistry to control their optical and electronic properties, and the infrastructure surrounding their development relies on established expertise.

For example, chiral molecular materials—molecules that exist as a pair of non-superimposable mirror images—will revolutionize quantum technologies. Thin, single-handed layers of these remarkably versatile molecules can be used to control the spin of electrons at room temperature. At the same time, the long spin coherence times and good thermal and chemical stability of metal phthalocyanines will see them being used to carry quantum information.

While 2023 will undoubtedly see more bombastic headlines about the operating speeds of quantum computers, materials scientists will be studying, discovering, and designing the next-generation of low-cost, high-efficiency, and sustainable quantum technologies.

Source: New Materials Will Bring the Next Generation of Quantum Computers | WIRED UK

2023 could be the year of public cloud repatriation

January 18, 2023/in Blogs/by Wingman

With cloud costs and complexity higher than expected, many enterprises are making a U-turn and putting applications and data back in traditional systems.

Here’s a topic we don’t discuss as much as we should: public cloud repatriation. Many regard repatriating data and applications back to enterprise data centers from a public cloud provider as an admission that someone made a big mistake moving the workloads to the cloud in the first place.

I don’t automatically consider this a failure as much as an adjustment of hosting platforms based on current economic realities. Many cite the high cost of cloud computing as the reason for moving back to more traditional platforms.

High cloud bills are rarely the fault of the cloud providers. They are often self-inflicted by enterprises that don’t refactor applications and data to optimize their cost-efficiencies on the new cloud platforms. Yes, the applications work as well as they did on the original platform, but you’ll pay for the inefficiencies you chose not to deal with during the migration. The cloud bills are higher than expected because lifted-and-shifted applications can’t take advantage of native capabilities such as auto-scaling, security, and storage management that allow workloads to function efficiently.

It’s easy to point out the folly of not refactoring data and applications for cloud platforms during migration. The reality is that refactoring is time-consuming and expensive, and the pandemic put many enterprises under tight deadlines to migrate to the cloud. For enterprises that did not optimize systems for migration, it doesn’t make much economic sense to refactor those workloads now. Repatriation is often a more cost-effective option for these enterprises, even considering the hassle and expense of operating your own systems in your own data center.

In a happy coincidence, the prices of hard drive storage, networking hardware, computer hardware, power supplies, and other tech gear dropped in the past 10 years while cloud computing costs remained about the same or a bit higher.

Business is business. You can’t ignore the fact that it makes economic sense to move some workloads back to a traditional data center.

It makes the most sense to repatriate workloads and data storage that typically do a lot of the same thing, such as just storing data for long periods of time without any special data processing (e.g., no advanced artificial intelligence or business intelligence). These workloads can often move back to owned hardware and show a net gain ROI. Even with the added costs to take over and internalize operations, the enterprise saves money (or a lot of money) compared to equivalent public cloud hosting.

However, don’t forget that many workloads have dependencies on specialized cloud-based services. Those workloads typically cannot be repatriated because affordable analogs are unlikely to run on traditional platforms. When advanced IT services are involved (AI, deep analytics, massive scaling, quantum computing, etc.), public clouds typically are more economical.

Many enterprises made a deliberate business decision at the time to absorb the additional costs of running lifted-and-shifted applications on public clouds. Now, based on today’s business environment and economics, many enterprises will make a simple decision to bring some workloads back into their data center.

The overall goal is to find the most optimized architecture to support your business. Sometimes it’s on a public cloud; many times, it’s not. Or not yet. I learned a long time ago not to fall blindly in love with any technology, including cloud computing.

2023 may indeed be the year we begin repatriating applications and data stores that are more cost-effective to run inside a traditional enterprise data center. This is not a criticism of cloud computing. Like any technology, cloud computing is better for some uses than for others. That “fact” will evolve and change over time, and businesses will adjust again. No shame in that. Source: 2023 could be the year of public cloud repatriation | InfoWorld

What is quantum computing and how will quantum computers change the world?

December 5, 2022/in News/by Wingman

Depending on who you ask, some say that quantum computers could either break the Internet, rendering pretty much every data security protocol obsolete, or allow us to compute our way out of the climate crisis.

These hyper-powerful devices, an emerging technology that exploits the properties of quantum mechanics, are much buzzed about.

Only last month, IBM unveiled its latest quantum computer, Osprey, a new 433 qubit processor that is three times more powerful than its predecessor built only in 2021.

But what is all the hype about?

Quantum is a field of science that studies the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles.

Proponents of quantum technology say these machines could usher in rapid advances in fields like drug discovery and materials science – a prospect that dangles the tantalising possibility of creating, for example, lighter, more efficient, electric vehicle batteries or materials that could facilitate effective CO2 capture.

With the climate crisis looming, and technology with a hope of solving complex issues like these are bound to draw keen interest.

Little wonder then, that some of the largest tech companies in the world – Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and, of course, IBM to name a few – are investing heavily in it and angling to stake their place in a quantum future.

How do quantum computers work?

Given these utopic-sounding machines are drawing such frenzied interest, it would perhaps be useful to understand how they work and what differentiates them from classical computing.

Take every device that we have today – from the smartphones in our pockets to our most powerful supercomputers. These operate and have always operated on the same principle of binary code.

Essentially, the chips in our computers use tiny transistors that function as on/off switches to give two possible values, 0 or 1, otherwise known as bits, short for binary digits.

These bits can be configured into larger, more complex units, essentially long strings of 0s and 1s encoded with data commands that tell the computer what to do: display a video; show a Facebook post; play an mp3; let you type an email, and so on.

But a quantum computer?

These machines function in an entirely different way. In the place of bits in a classical computer, the basic unit of information in quantum computing is what’s known as a quantum bit, or qubit. These are typically subatomic particles like photons or electrons.

The key to a quantum machine’s advanced computational power lies in its ability to manipulate these qubits.

“A qubit is a two-level quantum system that allows you to store quantum information,” Ivano Tarvenelli, the global leader for advanced algorithms for quantum simulations at the IBM Research Lab in Zurich, explained to Euronews Next.

“Instead of having only the two levels zero and one that you would have in a classical calculation here, we can build a superposition of these two states,” he added.

Superposition

Superposition in qubits means that unlike a binary system with its two possible values, 0 or 1, a qubit in superposition can be 0 or 1 or 0 and 1 at the same time.

And if you can’t wrap your head around that, the analogy often given is that of a penny.

When it is stationary a penny has two faces, heads or tails. But if you flip it? Or spin it? In a way, it is both heads and tails at the same time until it lands and you can measure it.

And for computing, this ability to be in multiple states at the same time means that you have an exponentially larger amount of states in which to encode data, making quantum computers exponentially more powerful than traditional, binary code computers.

Quantum entanglement

Another property crucial to how quantum computing works is entanglement. It’s a somewhat mysterious feature of quantum mechanics that even baffled Einstein in his time who declared it “spooky action at a distance”.

When two qubits are generated in an entangled state there is a direct measurable correlation between what happens to one qubit in an entangled pair and what happens to the other, no matter how far apart they are. This phenomenon has no equivalent in the classical world.

“This property of entanglement is very important because it brings a much, much stronger connectivity between the different units and qubits. So the elaboration power of this system is stronger and better than the classical computer,” Alessandro Curioni, the director of the IBM Research Lab in Zurich, explained to Euronews Next.

In fact, this year, the Nobel Prize for physics was awarded to three scientists, Alain Aspect, John Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger, for their experiments on entanglement and advancing the field of quantum information.

Why do we need quantum computers?

So, in an admittedly simplified nutshell, these are the building blocks of how quantum computers work.

But again, why do we necessarily need such hyper-powerful machines when we already have supercomputers?

“[The] quantum computer is going to make, much easier, the simulation of the physical world,” he said.

“A quantum computer is going to be able to better simulate the quantum world, so simulation of atoms and molecules”.

As Curioni explains, this will allow quantum computers to aid in the design and discovery of new materials with tailored properties.

“If I am able to design a better material for energy storage, I can solve the problem of mobility. If I am able to design a better material as a fertiliser, I am able to solve the problem of hunger and food production. If I am able to design a new material that allows [us] to do CO2 capture, I am able to solve the problem of climate change,” he said.

Undesirable side effects?

But there could also be some undesirable side effects that have to be accounted for as we enter the quantum age.

A primary concern is that quantum computers of the future could be possessed of such powerful calculation ability that they could break the encryption protocols fundamental to the security of the Internet that we have today.

“When people communicate over the Internet, anyone can listen to the conversation. So they have to first be encrypted. And the way encryption works between two people who haven’t met is they have to rely on some algorithms known as RSA or Elliptic Curve, Diffie–Hellman, to exchange a secret key,” Vadim Lyubashevsky, a cryptographer at the IBM Research Lab in Zurich, explained.

“Exchanging the secret key is the hard part, and those require some mathematical assumptions which become broken with quantum computers”.

In order to protect against this, Lyubashevsky says that organisations and state actors should already be updating their cryptography to quantum-safe algorithms ie. ones that cannot be broken by quantum computers.

Many of these algorithms have already been built and others are in development.

“Even if we don’t have a quantum computer, we can write algorithms and we know what it will do once it exists, how it will run these algorithms,” he said.

“We have concrete expectations for what a particular quantum computer will do and how it will break certain encryption schemes or certain other cryptographic schemes. So, we can definitely prepare for things like that,” Lyubashevsky added.

“And that makes sense. It makes sense to prepare for things like that because we know exactly what they’re going to do”.

But then there is the issue of data that already exists which hasn’t been encrypted with quantum-safe algorithms.

“There’s a very big danger that government organisations right now are already storing a lot of Internet traffic in the hopes that once they build a quantum computer, they’ll be able to decipher it,” he said.

“So, even though things are still secure now, maybe something’s being transmitted now that is still interesting in ten, 15 years. And that’s when the government, whoever builds a quantum computer, will be able to decrypt it and perhaps use that information that he shouldn’t be using”.

Despite this, weighed against the potential benefits of quantum computing, Lyubashevsky says these risks shouldn’t stop the development of these machines.

“Breaking cryptography is not the point of quantum computers, that’s just a side effect,” he said.

“It’ll have hopefully a lot more useful utilities like increasing the speed with which you can discover chemical reactions and use that for medicine and things like that. So this is the point of a quantum computer,” he added.

“And sure, it has the negative side effect that it’ll break cryptography. But that’s not a reason not to build a quantum computer, because we can patch that and we have patched that. So that’s sort of an easy problem to solve there”.

Source: What is quantum computing and how will quantum computers change the world? | Euronews

Top edge computing platforms in 2022

December 5, 2022/in News/by Wingman

Edge computing helps reduce latency of data processing. See which edge computing platform is right for your business.

As modern technology continues to advance in ways that satisfy the human desire for instant gratification, consumers are placing more emphasis on speed as a key feature when choosing their product vendors.

Whether you choose to blame this on the world’s introduction to old-school instant messaging or Amazon’s two-day shipping, at the end of the day, the demand for speed affects businesses and organizations like it never has before. But, this demand also means that businesses and organizations must step up their operations to keep up with the competition.

Software solutions that can enable companies to pick up the pace and complete their processes at a faster rate are highly favored, with this feature valued second only to reliability. Fortunately, organizations looking for a way to advance in their data processing can adopt edge computing technology in order to carry out their operations quickly but still trust that their data is secure.

Top edge computing products

Azure Stack Edge

Azure Stack Edge is a hardware as a service that enables organizations to access, utilize and analyze their applications and data locally.

Users can run their containerized applications at the edge location where data is generated and gathered. From there, the data can be analyzed, transformed and filtered, and users can control the data that they choose to send to the cloud. Their edge device also serves as a cloud storage gateway for easy data transfers between the cloud and the edge location.

Working with Azure’s edge solution makes it easy to utilize Azure’s other integratable products, so organizations can generate and train their machine learning (ML) models in Azure and benefit from quick data analysis and insight access.

Azure has several versions of their edge devices within their Azure Stack Edge Pro Series, granting users and organizations more options with a greater selection of features and capabilities to choose from, so they can get the tool that suits their needs.

HPE Edgeline

HPE Edgeline supports edge computing and processing through its various converged edge systems. Its systems provide IT functionality optimized for edge operating environments, enabling users to benefit from edge storage, computing and management.

Their solutions are purpose-built for the edge, with autonomous operations, local decision-making in real-time, and easy scaling across sites and locations. As for security, HPE Edgeline Integrated System Manager provides IT-grade security to support the deployment and operation of their Edgeline systems.

The HPE Edgeline Converged Edge systems serve as a distributed converged edge compute model, so users can manage their operations and data in real time, even without an internet connection. In addition, its systems connect open standards-based operations technology (OT) data acquisition and control technologies directly to the user’s organizational IT system, reducing latency and saving space.

HPE has various enterprise-class converged edge system tools for customers to choose from, with features optimized for different use cases. Additionally, HPE’s Edgeline OT Link Platform software is also offered and supports users’ edge activities like data flow and integration management.

ClearBlade

ClearBlade’s technology works to streamline edge data by connecting device sensors or event data and transporting it into cloud data lakes, enterprise systems or artificial intelligence (AI) tools through built-in integrations. Its software can connect via REST, MQTT and sockets in addition to its prebuilt connections for third-party systems.

The solution lets users choose to keep their functions local within their edge locations or transfer them within cloud storage and vice versa. Users can also complete various data processes at the edge, including data analysis, modification, routing, storage and management.

ClearBlade keeps users’ data secure with encryption, authentication and authorization of application programming interface (API) access. It enables connections across all user clouds, gateways and devices with various protocols.

Another aspect of its edge computing technology is offline continuity, which ClearBlade advertises as a perk to its software. Even when an internet connection is lost, all edge devices are able to continue their real-time behaviors.

Eclipse ioFog

The Eclipse Foundation’s Eclipse ioFog is an edge computing platform for processing enterprise-scale data and applications at the edge. By processing users’ data at the point of creation with an edge-centric compute architecture, users can gain more functionality and greater security for all of their data and application processes.

ioFog’s universal edge computing platform enables users to create and remotely deploy their microservices to their edge computing devices by providing a common computing platform that lets software run on any device.

Users can deploy and manage their multiple edge devices at once as an edge compute network, which ioFog manages automatically. ioFog can manage and transfer any data type and supports native Geofencing of users’ data, notes and routing.

To secure users’ edge activities, each node within the edge compute network is part of a distributed trust network and is constantly validating security protocols with all of the other nodes, monitoring for deviations. The data transfer and communications between notes occur via session-based MicroVPNs, which ioFog creates as a method of enforcing security for its users.

Google Distributed Cloud Edge

Google Distributed Cloud Edge users can now maintain their data use and storage according to their workload needs and requirements by utilizing any of Google’s 140+ network edge locations worldwide or their own localized, customer-owned edge locations. Google also supports Google Distributed Cloud services across the customer’s operator’s edge network and customer-owned data centers.

Users can use the open-source platform Anthos on their Google-managed hardware at their edge location to run their applications securely on a remote services platform. This way, they can locally process their data and transfer or modernize their applications with Google Cloud services.

By leveraging the capabilities of Google Distributed Cloud Edge, users can run local data processing, modernize their on-premises environments, run low-latency edge compute workloads and deploy private 5G/LTE solutions.

The software also connects with third-party services, granting greater accessibility within customers’ own environments.

Alef Private Edge Platform

Alef’s Edge API Platform enables organizations to manage their applications at the edge through mobile connections. In addition, users can develop their own private mobile LTE networks with API connections and firewall protection.

The APIs allow users to manage their mobile connectivity for Industry 4.0 applications. Additionally, deploying mobile networks as a service at the edge can allow users to create an easy-to-use private LTE network without on-site mobile network installation.

Alef’s system increases speed for users, as connecting to their edge enables them to access services within 50 milliseconds of any U.S. enterprise. Furthermore, by simplifying network complexities, Alef has reduced the time to launch to 60 minutes. And by orchestrating their operations and workloads at the edge with their core IP, organizations benefit from lowered latency for their applications.

Finally, leveraging Alef’s edge solutions means being able to connect to any spectrum, any EPC (Evolved Packet Core) and any cloud. Users can connect to 5G/4G/3G spectrums or their own Wi-Fi and manage data traffic across any cloud provider. And Alef is agnostic, so organizations can partner with their EPC or choose to bring their own.

Cisco Edge Computing Solutions

Cisco offers several edge computing solutions for users to deploy their services on their own developed edge computing infrastructure.

Users can design an edge computing infrastructure for their workloads that enable them to separate their network functions and optimize their resources with software-centric solutions that they can procure separately. Additionally, their fixed edge and mobile networks can share 5G core-based infrastructure coverage for greater efficiency in their operational processes.

Application developers can benefit from using Cisco’s open-edge computing model. IT can enable them to mitigate congestion in the core and meet local demands, as applications can access information about local conditions in real time. Additionally, close proximity to subscribers and real-time network data access can enable a better application user experience.

Cisco’s edge computing model can deliver high-quality data and application performance and security. By distributing the users’ computing capacity to the edge, users can benefit from lower latency to end devices, greater network efficiency with edge offloading and reduced costs for data transportation.

Infiot ZETO (Netskope Borderless WAN)

Infiot, recently acquired by Netskope, is a secure access service edge (SASE) platform that provides edge intelligence with AI-driven components. Netskope Borderless WAN will now integrate Infiot’s ZETO technology to further its edge functionalities for Netskope customers.

The combined technology of Infiot and Netskope will now be able to provide further built-in routing, policy-based traffic control, wired and wireless networking, and integrated network security functions for edge deployment.

Furthermore, Netskope customers will be able to utilize cloud-first networking through the use of Netskope SASE Gateways for secure connections between any enterprise location.

The solution’s developments will help improve Netskope customers’ performance speed, cloud visibility and application activity with the addition of this technology.

What is edge computing?

Edge computing is the process of utilizing a software system to process data closer to the data’s source and use location. Processing data with this solution can reduce the time it would take to analyze the data compared to having first to transfer it to a data center or cloud. This is because it shortens the latency time that would be required to move the data back and forth.

How do edge computing products benefit users?

Organizations that choose to store and leverage their business data are constantly increasing their data volumes. The ever-increasing volume and complexity of this data have caused the need for more space and have led to latency issues. However, edge computing software is capable of more significant amounts of data with reduced latency, which means more easily accessible data insights for organizations.

However, an edge computing solution can do more than just reduce the data processing time compared to cloud computing. Organizations can gain a vast range of additional benefits by processing data at a location at the edge of a network and utilizing systems at those physical locations.

Organizations that utilize cloud-based data analysis tools across all of their business enterprises can increase their risk of security breaches and potential data loss, as an attack on a connected solution could affect all of their organizational operations. With edge computing, a security breach would have less impact on the entire organization, and only the transferred data could be affected.

Conducting on-site data analysis with edge computing devices also means that the analyzed data is safeguarded by the localized firewalls that protect the enterprise.

Edge computing can also allow organizations to control their data flow and storage that takes place within their edge locations, enabling them to manage their data in a way that lowers data redundancy, reduces bandwidth and lowers operation costs.

Edge computing is also arguably more reliable than cloud computing. Using edge devices to save and process data locally can mean having greater access to data than entrusting remorse data storage location, as edge device users won’t need to worry about their internet connectivity issues when trying to process and access their data. Regardless of connectivity issues, organizations can have access to their network data stored in their edge solutions.

Primary features to look for in edge computing software

There are several features and capabilities that are common in edge computing products. Edge computing software solutions generally provide features that enable real-time access to local information to support immediate action. In addition, many edge computing software solutions will provide automated features that can occur regardless of unreliable or inaccessible internet connectivity.

To keep users’ data and applications secure edge computing software should come with security features. Common security features of these solutions may include on-premises security, isolated operating environments, edge device monitoring and authorizations, authentication, and encryption layers. Alternatively, edge software solutions may support connections with third-party security services.

Other beneficial features of edge computing systems should support the management of the organization’s data storage, analysis and transfer processes. This can include features that provide users with visibility into their data center and operations and even cloud operations.

In addition, granting users greater control over their data flows can help them facilitate easy scaling across locations, supported by an easily manageable and configurable architecture.

Source: Top edge computing platforms in 2022 | TechRepublic

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