Edge computing startup Vapor IO now offers a direct connection between its edge containers to Amazon Web Services (AWS) via a high-speed fiber network link.
The company said that connection between its Kinetic Edge containers and AWS will be provided by Crown Castle’s Cloud Connect fiber network, which uses Amazon Direct Connect Services. This would help reduce network latency by essentially drawing a straight fiber line from Vapor IO’s edge computing data centers to Amazon’s cloud computing data centers.
“When combined with Crown Castle’s high-speed Cloud Connect fiber, the Kinetic Edge lets AWS developers build applications that span the entire continuum from core to edge. By enabling new classes of applications at the edge, we make it possible for any AWS developer to unlock the next generation of real-time, innovative use cases,” wrote Matt Trifiro, chief marketing officer of Vapor IO, in a blog post.
Vapor IO clams that the connection will lower latency by as much as 75%. “Connecting workloads and data at the Kinetic Edge with workloads and data in centralized AWS data centers makes it possible to build edge applications that leverage the full power of AWS,” wrote Trifiro.
Developers building applications at the Kinetic Edge will have access to the full suite of AWS cloud computing services, including Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (Amazon EC2), Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC), and Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS).
Crown Castle is the largest provider of shared communications infrastructure in the U.S., with 40,000 cell towers and 60,000 miles of fiber, offering 1Gbps to 10Gbps private fiber connectivity between the Kinetic Edge and AWS.
AWS Direct Connect is a essentially a private connection between Amazon’s AWS customers and their the AWS data centers, so customers don’t have to rout their traffic over the public internet and compete with Netflix and YouTube, for example, for bandwidth.
How edge computing works
The structure of edge computing is the reverse of the standard internet design. Rather than sending all the data up to central servers, as much processing as possible is done at the edge. This is to reduce the sheer volume of data coming upstream and thus reduce latency.
With things like smart cars, even if 95% of data is eliminated that remaining, 5% can still be a lot, so moving it fast is essential. Vapor IO said it will shuttle workloads to Amazon’s USEAST and USWEST data centers, depending on location.
This shows how the edge is up-ending the traditional internet design and moving more computing outside the traditional data center, although a connection upstream is still important because it allows for rapid movement of necessary data from the edge to the cloud, where it can be stored or processed.
