Instead of edge cloud computing representing yet another significant discontinuity, it will become a key part of a continuum from the smallest single sensor through to the largest cloud data center. It is part of a context-driven mesh, where devices can discover each other, test their communications capability and facilitate their own integration, driven by the context of the task or workload. From the mimik point of view, this can be considered as providing users with a Device-as-a-Service environment.
This company is targeting bringing the computational element of workflow as close as possible – both physically and logically -to where the application demand and the sources of data are located. The ultimate implementation of this goal is to make it possible for the devices producing the raw data to also run the application needed to process that data, communicate it to other applications and quite possibly manage, and change, the actions of the process the device is sensing or operating as an integral element.
The architecture allows forming device clusters based on three scopes: Network, Proximity, and Account. ‘Network’ means direct interconnection – be that in the same home attached to the same Wi Fi, or the same manufacturing facility attached to the corporate network. Here, there are a huge number of use cases where applications and devices need to communicate with each other.
‘Proximity’ refers to situations where a device needs to reach beyond the direct network within a given proximity to find the right resource, such as additional computation to process a specific workload, while ‘Account’ refers to devices or resources that may belong to associated accounts, but for which access is authorised.
This ability to mimic the cloud then leads to the next stage, the ability to start orchestrating the collaborations possible right out at the edge, using a ‘lite container’. This uses the same API semantics as Docker in order to ensure compatibility from within a cloud environment and seamlessly out to the edge. This allows existing cloud applications and services to be readily extended as far out into the edge as required.
This places mimik as a contender for the role of pan-network ‘glue’ providing the environment in which business processes can be developed. They can extend, as a single entity, from the sensors and controllers of, say, machine tools and other manufacturing systems, through local data aggregation and processing, and on to regional and finally central management and corporate back-office systems with, at each step, only the relevant data is forwarded up the chain of command. For example, there is no need for the back-office system to be informed that a specific machine tool continues to function well within tolerances. Any slippage close to tolerance will, however, be the kind of data that it is important to forward and eventually act upon.
