What is Edge?

I originally wrote this as a comment to my friend and colleague Matt Schoessler's post about Edge. But, LinkedIn thought my 455 word response was too long, so here it!

It is interesting to read this article and to realize how many terms “IoT” are increasingly becoming blurry and will increasingly lead to more difficultly in user evaluation. Edge is much more then “data exchange with IT systems and IT data formats” we have been able to do this since before I started my career. So if that is a definition of Edge, then Edge is a very mature technology that isn’t. Also, combining Windows & PLC (combining OT/IT) is not new and has been out for at least 5 years with many PLC/Windows combinations released. Security has always been paramount but “defense-in-depth strategies” is also not new and IEC network security standards have also been out for years –although not always properly implemented. Also, connecting PLCs to the cloud is also not Edge, almost every vendor has been able to do this for years.

But, let me tell you what is new, novel and will be revolutionizing about Edge that really gets me excited and only briefly mentioned in this article at the end when Eastburn was making references to iPhone Apps. That is “containerization” the ability to have code typically running in an Linux environment connected to the PLC; not dependent on shared dependencies like your Microsoft Visual C++ 2015. Much like how there is only one Google Map app that works on any iPhone (or Android), regardless of age and model that just works, every time without any configuration. Oh and by the way with Edge I don’t need to use the cloud, everything stays local to my machine and exchanges data between my PLC/Edge as fast as I want and not worry about cloud latency; now I can do some fancy ML/AI process in the Edge and send the results to my PLC. That is really cool!

So now, as a customer I can ask the question, is this task better suited to run in a PLC or Edge?

PLCs are really good at processing IO signals and deciding what to do next, but cannot replace a PC when it comes to raw data crunching. Also, there’s no PLC Programming in the Edge, only your favorite development languages. Which has a nice side-effect of making it easier to find engineers that can program Edge Apps.

Also, much like on your iPhone you can deploy an Edge app with a scan of the proverbial FaceID. You don’t have preform surgery on your mission-critical PLC code to install the latest and great ML/AL predictive maintenance app, just deploy to your Edge!

Thank you attending my TED Talk!