Ask 10 people what the Edge is, and you just might get 10 different answers. In reality, there is one Edge. Watch the video or read the transcript to better understand why, when it comes to removing heat from these deployments, it matters little where your Edge is located...it just matters how efficiently you can cool them.
We get that question a lot lately. We're not talking about what is the Edge, but rather where is the Edge. Certainly, we hear so many different definitions of the Edge today: near Edge, far Edge, micro Edge, micro Edge data center, this Edge, that Edge. I read an article that discussed six different Edges. I do not believe there are six different Edges, there's one Edge.
Now if you look up the definition of edge in the dictionary (I still use a dictionary now and then) the edge is “the line where an object or area begins or ends”...one edge. When people thought the world was flat, they would sail to the edge and fall off; they did not sail through three or four other edges and then fall off, “he went to the edge and fell off.” That is the Edge we're talking about: a physical location on a factory floor, in a warehouse, underneath a cell phone tower in the middle of a field, in the middle of a solar array 200 feet up off the ground, in a wind turbine and a cell. The physical Edge, still supporting the Edge applications and Edge data processing.
But doing it with single standalone footprints may be a couple of cabinets with climate control, power distribution, monitoring and security – all of the components you would expect to find in a traditional data center, whether you call it your Edge data center, or your hyperscale data center or your colocation facility, which those facilities provide all of those components. That now has to be translated to a single footprint or, as I said, a couple of footprints in one of those remote locations.
That's the Edge for Rittal. That is the Edge that Rittal provides all the products for. Again: enclosures, climate control, power management and distribution, enclosure monitoring and security. The components needed to support your Edge deployment, your Edge applications, wherever they may be.
Want to know more about Edge deployments and how to successfully manage one? Download our IT Edge Infrastructure Handbook.