As networks become increasingly congested with huge volumes of data generated from user and IoT devices, IT leaders are recognizing that analysing real-time data nearer to the Edge yields greater efficiencies and insights, which results in improved business outcomes.
Further, the ability of organisations to realize business value from data increasingly depends on their capacity to collect, process, store and analyse it at the Edge, according to the Aruba paper, At the Edge of Change.
The Vanson Bourne global study of 2,400 IT decision-makers (ITDMs), revealed that 70% in APAC markets, including Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Singapore and South Korea, are already actively using Edge technologies to deliver new outcomes, with 6% planning to do so in the next year.
However, there is a growing recognition among ITDMs in the region (84%) of the urgency around the need to implement integrated systems to handle data at the Edge.
Moreover, the maturity of a company’s deployment at the Edge is strongly correlated with its ability to derive value from the data collected from devices. Globally, 78% of ITDMs in production deployment with Edge technologies said they were in a position to use this data to improve business decisions or processes. That compares with just 42% of ITDMs in the APAC region who are only at the pilot stage and 31% who are planning pilots in the next year.
Partha Narasimhan, global CTO and HPE senior fellow for Aruba, said the research suggests that the vast majority of IT leaders are already embracing the Edge or are preparing to.
“Developing an Edge strategy against the backdrop of existing cloud implementations is becoming a necessity as the number of connected devices increases and it becomes impractical to transfer vast volumes of data to a cloud or data centre environment, especially as organisations undergo digital transformation to advance their business objectives and address customer needs,” he explained.
Justin Chiah, senior director, South East Asia, Taiwan and Hong Kong/Macau (SEATH), for Aruba, predicts that the APAC region will lead the adoption of private connectivity services until 2023.
He opined that this elevated appetite for Edge connectivity services, enabled by increasingly prevalent IoT infrastructure, continues to transform the new hybrid workplace model as businesses move workloads to the Edge.
“This drives a whole slew of opportunities for innovation and new developments across sectors such as education, financial services, government, healthcare, manufacturing and retail. For example, deploying Edge networking infrastructure can streamline previous industrial processes which required heavy human interaction. This allows businesses to continuously improve their supply chains and achieve success safely and more efficiently,” he continued.
Other key findings:
- 37% of ITDMs across the APAC markets surveyed said “there is too much data for our systems to handle” and 30% stated that “we cannot process the data quickly enough to take action.”
- A quarter also highlighted problems with budget (26%), a lack of skills (27%), and an inability to collect data from so many different sources (25%).
- In Singapore, 36% of ITDMs cite complying with data regulation as a common challenge in creating value from data.
- 61% of Singaporean ITDMs (compared to 54% in APAC region) recognize “much faster data processing” and “ability to recognize serious issues faster” as a result of optimizing machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) on their networks.
- While ITDMs show a growing interest in processing and analysing data at the Edge across the APAC region, they are also concerned about various barriers to adoption.
- 34% of ITDMs in APAC pointed to a lack of expertise, skill or understanding with regard to Edge technologies, as well as difficulty integrating with legacy technologies as top concerns. Notably, the overwhelming majority (95%) think they are missing at least some skills needed to help their organization unlock the value of data.
- In Singapore, cost of implementation also presents a barrier to adoption of Edge computing to ITDMs (40%).
- 70% of IT leaders in the Asia Pacific region are already actively using Edge technologies to deliver new outcomes and those with more mature Edge deployments are more likely to be gaining business value from their data by using it to inform decisions and processes
