Edge Computing: Tension field between Grown Structures & the CyberPhysical World

The manufacturing industry produces more data than any other major industry in the world, & ongoing digitization will further accelerate this development. Nevertheless, the digital mindset, which has already significantly changed other industries, has developed only slowly. There are different ways to process this data by integrating a harmonized, highly aligned IT & OT environment. The question remains open as to which digital strategy will support a company in the long term in order to be able to profit directly from the generated data & at the same time meet future challenges. A significant number of companies introduced a Cloud Strategy at a very early stage & thus an expected unlimited availability of resources or central storage of all data generated by their machines & employees. However, in the discussion about the use of Cloud Computing in companies, topics such as data security or compliance problems, but also physical challenges such as the possible data throughput on an industrial level, play a major role. Further strategies like Edge Computing come into play. Edge Computing addresses precisely those areas in which the centralized approach of cloud computing is not sufficient. It focuses on geographically distributed, latency-sensitive & highly resilient computing & storage resources, which are usually located very close to production facilities. Possible bandwidth limitations, transmission delays & service failures are avoided, real-time & computationally intensive computing & data analysis services are optimized & the processing of sensitive data is better controlled. The right concepts will be taking up a central role in the successful sustainable development of a company. In this context, my presentation is intended to provide some food for thought on how to meet the challenges & transfer them into reality.