For many years, the Gateways and Set-top boxes have been nothing more than brainless end-devices situated at the edge of the service provider’s networks. Their only usage: facilitate the access of the end-user to internet and media services. Nowadays, together with the increase of processing power in the embedded systems, it is no longer the case. By implementing the critical functions into hardware to free up the system resources and by using the advantages of multi-core technology, a world of opportunities has opened up for the end-devices providers. Finally, the edge devices can be used not only to collect and publish data to and from other sources, but also to run applications and act as terminals for the services provided.
As the number of edge devices increases in a very high pace, DDS does a great job to take the problems out of the way through decoupling the data and providing scalability. Any application on any device can publish or subscribe to its data feed of interest. This way, the edge devices can contribute with information to the system and receive data necessary for the applications installed, each app being de-coupled from the others. All these benefits give us the freedom to offer a broad variety of services regardless the operating system or platform.
But why is this flexibility so important? Well, besides a shorter time of development and increased agility (which, let’s face it, give a breath of fresh air to any technology company), thinking about the future becomes a bit easier. Especially in the technology sector, where things move at a blazing speed. When a new emerging technology appears on the market, the waves it creates could drastically change the entire ecosystem. As the new technology becomes more mature, more and more users will decide that the benefits outweigh the risks and will adopt it. So it happens with Cloud Computing. IaaS, PaaS and SaaS can all be provided from the cloud, as long as the user pays for the service and has a terminal it can access the service from.
May it be a tablet, a gateway, set-top box or any other end device, the empowered functionality of an edge device is quite limited. Seeking to accomplish specific functions, the terminal devices are specialized in providing services from within the cloud. Their main function – to give the user a possibility to control the vast resources at their disposal.
According to artofservice.com.eu, <<Cloud computing designers, engineers and gurus can actually construct embedded system devices according to the actual requirements of their proposed systems. That’s right, cloud computing aficionados will finally be able to tailor their proposed UI devices “around their clouds” rather than the other way around. (…) There are already companies manufacturing prepackaged boards, components, and hardware that is ready to be integrated into devices as we speak, it’s simply a matter of putting the pieces together. (…) The private user of cloud services is mostly entrenched in entertainment right now, but cloud-like apps are also slowly making their way onto people’s smart phones, pads and tablets as well. Sure, these apps are usually designed to do things like online storage or play music, but it’s a sign that cloud technology is becoming more relevant to individual consumers. Embedded systems connected to a cloud network by comparison, would be extremely powerful and offer users many times the power of their most cherished tablet or PC, and to top it all off, might even be significantly cheaper to buy and own than these devices as well.
