It's back to on-premise computing again with NTT's edge computing

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation has introduced "edge computing", which it says can reduce cloud application response times by a maximum factor of 100.

Source: NTT

Cloud services can be subject to slow response times if they depend on remote servers that could be sited far away, said NTT. According to the company, it takes several hundred milliseconds to interact across the Pacific Ocean; such lags can affect response times for intelligent transport control systems (ITS), online gaming and machine-to-machine (M2M) services. 

Edge computing passes part of the main server load onto small servers located near users and devices, achieving speeds of a few milliseconds instead of a few hundred milliseconds. High-volume data processing, such as required for M2M and big data, can be done by these 'edge servers', reducing network bandwidth. Such servers can also take over part of the processing currently done by devices, so that applications can run more quickly. 

NTT has introduced the "edge-accelerated Web platform (EAWP)" which enables Web applications on mobile devices to run partially on edge servers, and has pledged to extend the edge-computing ecosystem with new applications and forming alliances with network carriers, content providers, and cloud service providers.