Schneider Electric has unveiled findings from a newly commissioned IDC White Paper entitled, Succeeding at Digital First Connected Operations, that highlights the power of edge computing in enabling the shift to a digital-first world. The white paper details responses from over 1,000 IT and operations professionals across industrial, healthcare, education, and other verticals as well as a series of in-depth interviews with industrial enterprises. Respondents were global, representing firms in the United States, China, Japan, Germany, The United Kingdom, India, and Ireland. The organisations ranged in size from 100 to more than 1,000 employees. Responses provided insights about the factors driving edge investments, the challenges firms faced while deploying to the edge, obstacles to continued investment, and strategic recommendations to future-proof edge capabilities.

“As organisations seek to create new or improved experiences for customers and to become more operationally efficient, improve safety and security, and become more sustainable, they are leaning more on digital technologies. The white paper examines the crucial role that edge computing and edge deployments play in enabling digital-first, connected operations,” says Chris Hanley, SVP, commercial operations & global channels, leading edge commercial strategy, Schneider Electric. “It highlights strategies that IT professional and decision makers can adopt to future proof their edge computing capabilities to support remote, connected, secure, reliable, resilient, and sustainable operations.”

Edge computing is one of the major enablers of a digital-first paradigm. In fact, the most common use cases of edge infrastructure include cybersecurity systems to monitor the operational network locally as well as storing and processing operational data to bring it to the cloud. Further, when organisations were asked why they were investing in edge computing to support these workloads, respondents cited, “improve cybersecurity” (50%) and “systems resiliency and reliability” (44%). Yet, there are various challenges that organisations must overcome to ensure their edge infrastructure, and thus, their connected operations, are resilient and reliable. Despite the promise of the edge, many organisations report connectivity and power outage concerns. In fact, 32% of respondents have experienced a “lack of connectivity or slow connectivity” with their edge deployments. Further, 31% have experienced a “utility power outage or power surge lasting more than 60 seconds.”