To Edge or Not to Edge?

TL;DR

This paper investigates the conditions under which edge computing provides tangible benefits for video analytics, balancing performance gains with cost considerations.

Contribution

It offers an analysis of the specific scenarios where edge computing is advantageous for latency-sensitive and bandwidth-intensive applications.

Findings

Edge computing improves video analytics performance under certain conditions.

Cost-performance trade-offs determine the feasibility of edge deployment.

Guidelines for when to deploy edge versus cloud solutions.

Abstract

Edge computing caters to a wide range of use cases from latency sensitive to bandwidth constrained applications. However, the exact specifications of the edge that give the most benefit for each type of application are still unclear. We investigate the concrete conditions when the edge is feasible, i.e., when users observe performance gains from the edge while costs remain low for the providers, for an application that requires both low latency and high bandwidth: video analytics.