Espalier, a consultancy company specializing in strategic analysis that has been studying the Edge Computing market all over the world for about 20 years, has collaborated with Stratus Technologies, a global leader in the sector of simplified, protected and autonomous Edge Computing platforms, in drafting a comprehensive study of the global market to estimate the level of adoption of these technologies.
Together, the two companies have identified the use cases and key industrial sectors that will determine the strong diffusion of these technologies in the next five years. Specifically, the adoption of simple, secure and autonomous Edge Computing solutions will be increased as part of combined software and hardware architectures to support critical business processes of monitoring and control, supply chain, manufacturing execution systems (MES) and batch management , asset performance management (APM) and access control.
The study covering the global Edge Computing market is based on advanced analyzes conducted by Espalier's team of strategists and analysts to define the markets and the adoption of technologies, using primary and secondary research, and from proprietary analysis, and has estimated, in the next five years, a growth of Edge Computing and related technologies in all industrial sectors. The collaboration with Stratus has instead offered a valuable contribution in examining in detail this growth in light of the value of the technological revolution through use cases of the Industry 4.0 paradigm and horizontal technologies, as well as critical sectors that will benefit most from it.
“There is no doubt that the Edge is approaching an inflection point after the pandemic. Enterprises across all industries are looking to complement legacy cloud deployments, transforming the way they collect data and manage critical edge processes with the highest levels of reliability,” said Dr. Inder Thukral, CEO of Espalier. “In this context our collaboration with Stratus has allowed us to examine this growth of the Edge Computing market, from a technology revolution value perspective and we believe the Edge Computing platforms and services provided by Stratus are well positioned to support the ample opportunity, estimated at up to 46% growth, for those industries pursuing digital transformation at the Edge.”
OT Automation at the Edge Will Drive the Growth of Edge Computing in the Post-COVID Era
The research evaluated a number of Edge Computing use cases for horizontal Industry 4.0 technologies, such as IoT devices and platforms, artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics, cybersecurity, augmented reality ( AR)/Virtual Reality (VR) and traditional enterprise software workloads across industrial and non-industrial verticals. Applications were grouped by operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) and reveal growth for three segments:
- OT workloads – software that executes machine and equipment processes in remote/decentralized (edge) locations in industrial environments governed by OT teams, with a focus on PLCs and secure operations; growth of up to 46% is expected.
- Edge OT workloads – applications for monitoring and controlling machines and equipment focused on analytics, predictive maintenance and AR; growth of up to 13% is expected.
- Edge IT workloads – software that runs site-level industrial applications, such as distributed control systems (DCS), batch management, asset analytics and performance with significant IT oversight; growth of up to 28% is expected.
Use cases and critical industries that will benefit from the transformation brought about by Edge Computing
As organizations digitally transform, edge computing solutions are critical to ensuring uninterrupted uptime and providing insight and visibility into day-to-day processes where products are made and customers served. The most immediate use cases that determine its adoption are:
- Monitoring and control with HMI SCADA: Edge Computing platforms deliver the performance and fault tolerance needed to reliably run and scale HMI SCADA and Historian applications for critical equipment and processes. With computing power at the Edge, organizations get data ingestion, real-time processing, and data archiving for visibility, analysis, and decision-making.
- Supply Chain Visibility and Automated Material Handling (AMH): Edge Computing offers the ideal combination of computing power, performance and reliability to support warehouse automation and automated material handling, including asset tracking to address the lack of data visibility in the supply chain and the system downtime to avoid lost profit.
- Production execution and batch management: Manufacturers run MES, Batch and Quality applications close to production lines and critical equipment for real-time data acquisition and control, supporting operational resilience and driving manufacturing excellence, linking production to management.
- Asset Performance Management (APM): Data collected at the Edge from critical equipment and processes forms the foundation for APM solutions. Edge Computing enables the ingestion, organization and processing of datasets locally, and then deliver the data to the cloud for deeper analysis, including remote operations and mobile access to data and performance.
- Access control and building management: Edge Computing enables building management to consolidate systems, including security, access control, and utilities, onto a single platform.
The research also identifies these use cases as critical in certain industries, notably:
- Oil & Gas: Edge Computing meets key operational goals for remote operation, efficiency and security in Upstream and Midstream, through the ability to develop intelligent and connected oilfield equipment, enable terminal automation and manage pipelines.
- Digital manufacturing for discrete, even complex industries: Edge computing is a key technology for Industry 4.0 manufacturing initiatives in a number of manufacturing sectors such as electronics, semiconductor, automotive and consumer goods.
- Life Science and Pharmaceutical Manufacturing: Production execution, reliability, quality, and compliance are critical processes edge computing supports to eliminate data loss and unplanned downtime in the life sciences industry.
- Intelligent infrastructures and renewable sources: the use of Edge Computing is ideal for monitoring, control and access control with a view to the development of intelligent transport systems, renewable energy generation, building automation, water and wastewater for smart cities.
Learn more with the Edge Computing Experience from Stratus
To illustrate the wide range of use cases and environments in industrial automation adopting Edge Computing, Stratus has developed the Edge Computing Experience (ECX) which provides end users, OEMs, and System Integrators an immersive experience and full of content.