Edge Computing: Expanding the manufacturing industry with hybrid cloud
– Rajesh Rajamani, senior director edge computing and emerging verticals, Red Hat The manufacturing industry continues to be at the forefront of Industry 4.0, , which is the digital transformation of manufacturing using technologies such as smart manufacturing, cloud computing, internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and edge computing. Innovative companies are deploying these technologies and practices to foster greater ecosystem collaboration with suppliers and customers and to create mutually beneficial opportunities. The successful implementation of these technologies within the manufacturing stream increases the visibility of operations and production processes; and delivers competitive advantage through better product quality and adapting to market demand more quickly. The convergence of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) is a cornerstone to cloud and edge computing adoption, moving toward an intelligent enterprise. Edge computing is transforming operations and fueling faster innovation through advanced robotics and machine-to-machine communication closer to the source, rather than sending data to a server for analysis and response. Gathering, analysing, and acting on data on the factory floor in real-time offers benefits including reduction in downtime, accurately predicting maintenance, and improving overall product quality results in higher yield, reduced waste, increased throughput, and lower overall costs. Hybrid cloud: Fundamental infrastructure to integrate edge computing The edge is an extension of the datacentre footprint beyond the datacenter, virtual, private cloud, and public cloud environments that contain centralised infrastructure. In a sense, edge computing blends pieces from each to create infrastructure built to satisfy specific customer demands. In smart manufacturing, an edge deployment could consist of thousands of sensors connected to a data-aggregation tier. Connecting these sensors to hybrid cloud provides consistency from edge devices to the network to the centralised datacenter, converging IT and OT providing a common foundation. This allows IT teams to manage all networked devices just […]