Sep 28, 2026 · 11 min · 9 segments
Edge computing does not always need cloud-based back-ends, and pretending otherwise is one of the most expensive architectural mistakes in enterprise IT. Too many teams still assume that every edge…
Dave LinthicumHostSo I found
It's kind of a quasi-academic paper about a topic that I've been thinking about for a long period of time.
And that's the fact that edge computing does not always need a cloud-based backend.
And ultimately, the core idea is looking at architectural options where we're not necessarily binding edge systems, wearable computers, our phones, things that are in our car, thermostats on the wall, things like that, all of these edge-based systems to some sort of a backend server, because that may not be needed as much as you think.
In fact, having that backend connectivity causes fragility in your ability to run this thing and operate this thing long-term.
So in many cases, these edge-based systems are going to be kissing their backend cloud systems goodbye, because they're not going to be needed for most practical purposes.
So don't get me wrong, the cloud still matters for analytics, coordination, long-term management, but for many edge workloads, especially in wearables like this watch here, local processing is becoming the better architectural choice.
In other words, as much as we can make occur from a processing standpoint, locally on the device, the better off you're going to be because you don't have to have this backend connectivity all the time that needs to be maintained for the devices to operate correctly.
There's some independent modes that are there, but they need the back-end connectivity as well.
And so all of these things put restrictions on what we can do with our edge-based devices and therefore how much value they can have.
And I'm saying, as I said in the paper, that this may not need to be the case.
So I found
It's kind of a quasi-academic paper about a topic that I've been thinking about for a long period of time.
And that's the fact that edge computing does not always need a cloud-based backend.
And ultimately, the core idea is looking at architectural options where we're not necessarily binding edge systems, wearable computers, our phones, things that are in our car, thermostats on the wall, things like that, all of these edge-based systems to some sort of a backend server, because that may not be needed as much as you think.
In fact, having that backend connectivity causes fragility in your ability to run this thing and operate this thing long-term.
So in many cases, these edge-based systems are going to be kissing their backend cloud systems goodbye, because they're not going to be needed for most practical purposes.
So don't get me wrong, the cloud still matters for analytics, coordination, long-term management, but for many edge workloads, especially in wearables like this watch here, local processing is becoming the better architectural choice.
In other words, as much as we can make occur from a processing standpoint, locally on the device, the better off you're going to be because you don't have to have this backend connectivity all the time that needs to be maintained for the devices to operate correctly.
There's some independent modes that are there, but they need the back-end connectivity as well.
And so all of these things put restrictions on what we can do with our edge-based devices and therefore how much value they can have.
And I'm saying, as I said in the paper, that this may not need to be the case.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
