More and more companies in numerous industries are relying on the Internet of Things (IoT) to increase operational efficiency, improve necessary decision-making processes and enhance the added value of their products or services. From an informatics point of view, the IoT is a system comprising cyber-physical devices, software, data and people all connected to one another. Data should be available from anywhere and at any time, which is why the IoT relies on cloud computing.
Cloud-based services are of key significance, for example, when a company wants to increase storage capacity or enable remote work. However, other aspects of IoT besides data storage are relevant, such as data processing and data analysis. In order for IoT to develop further at this point, the decentralization of services and data spaces must be supported on an increasing basis in the future. Prognoses assume that 75 percent of the enterprise data will be supported through so-called edge computing by the year 2025.
IoT and edge computing - a match made with each other
When it comes to these developments, it’s therefore important to debate the various edge computing and edge cloud approaches and provide an overview of the most recent developments in next generation of IoT and edge computing in Europe. The EU IoT whitepaper "A Vision on Smart, Decentralised Edge Computing Research Directions" thus focuses on current developments in edge computing in Europe and draws upon those research directions that are currently being pursued in active next generation IoT (NGIoT) projects.
Among other things, the publication clarifies the term edge computing, provides a brief introduction to marquee NGIoT projects - including current standardization and pre-standardization efforts - and also supplies a compact overview of relevant aspects for the development of next generation IoT applications. The whitepaper was coordinated and created within the framework of the Cooperation and Support Action (CSA) EU-IoT under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Rute Sofia, head of the fortiss IIoT field of competence. The paper targets first and foremost researchers, engineers and government policy and standardization experts who are interested in current developments related to the NGIoT landscape.
The whitepaper "A Vision on Smart, Decentralised Edge Computing Research Directions" is available for download at the bottom of this page.
