Distributed Cloud
The demand for cloud computing is still on the rise. The cloud is constantly evolving and becoming more efficient. Issues relating to different physical geographical locations are particularly challenging. Distributed cloud computing is the answer.
Broad Horizon believes that distributed cloud computing is an ideal solution for companies that are heavily involved in the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, and other cutting-edge technology. Where the data is stored is becoming less important; these days, it’s all about exchanging data quickly and efficiently.
Distributed cloud computing
Distributed cloud allows you to extend the infrastructure you use in the public cloud to local data centres. This means that users are closer to the data in the cloud, which significantly improves performance and speeds up data availability.
Another major advantage of distributed cloud is that your distributed cloud environment remains part of the central public cloud platform. In a sense, you take servers from the cloud platform and move them to your local data centre or your own server. Meanwhile, your cloud provider continues to be responsible for running, managing, and updating the cloud services. This means that you can still enjoy the greatest benefits of the cloud when you use a distributed cloud.
Edge computing
With edge computing, your data is stored at the edge of your network: close to the user or the device that generates the data. So it’s similar to the servers you have on premise. The thing that makes edge computing different is that, if you need to, you can also use cloud storage, for example at times when your own network is overloaded. If you only use your own servers, you may encounter problems during peaks. Edge computing guarantees speed and reliability.
But it’s not just about data storage – computing power is also a key factor. In some scenarios, the use of local computing power or local chipsets (e.g. in your phone) is more powerful than computing in a central cloud. For example, the latest iPhones contain dedicated AI chips that can run algorithms locally at a high performance level so that not all the source data (needed for algorithm calculations) needs to be sent to the cloud.
Continuous Journey
The theory sounds all well and good, but could distributed cloud actually benefit your organization? And how can you implement it in a practical way? That’s where Broad Horizon comes in. We’re on hand to give you sound advice and come up with a pragmatic approach that works for you.
Our approach consists of several phases: Envision, Onboard, and Journey. By working methodically through the three phases, we make the technology accessible to you and enable your employees to actively participate in the process. While doing so, we also gather insights about the organization, its goals, and its target groups.
Practical distributed cloud applications
Distributed cloud can be used for various purposes. Here are a few common examples.
Improve multi-cloud and hybrid cloud solutions
Distributed cloud assists in the management of hybrid multi-cloud infrastructures. Primarily by establishing visibility from one central tool in which everything can be configured.
Scalable and agile
Building and managing new data centres in different geographical locations is expensive. Thanks to distributed cloud, organizations can expand their existing infrastructure without having to make physical investments.
Fast content delivery
Distributed cloud computing is also used for content delivery networks (CDN). Since the data is located as close as possible to the person requesting the content, there is less of a delay (latency).
Internet of Things
Video surveillance, automation, self-driving cars, smart buildings, and many other applications rely on real-time data analysis, so they can’t always wait for the data to reach the central cloud data centre. The low latency of distributed cloud and edge computing speeds up this process considerably.
Laws and regulations
Many data and privacy laws specify that personal data must be processed within certain geographical borders. A distributed cloud architecture makes it easier for organizations to process data in the user’s country or region.
Customer stories
Maersk
By connecting all refrigerated shipping containers to Azure IoT, Maersk offers its customers the opportunity to monitor and review how cargo is being transported at any time. With this project, Delegate was named a Digital Transformation Partner by Microsoft.
Microsoft
Want to see what’s happening ‘inside’ a machine using special glasses? Meet the Microsoft HoloLens. Holograms transform augmented analytics into a reality on the shop floor, allowing you, for example, to see production figures for each machine in real time and to receive automatic notifications of any incidents in the process.
BG Engineering
Although gritters are not in use for much of the year, they spring into action in droves when the temperature drops. This IoT application therefore has specific requirements in terms of being able to quickly scale up and scale down the environment in ad hoc situations. Thanks to our platform services, we are ready to take on this challenge, day and night.
Building blocks
DOTS Predictive Services
Our prediction models based on machine learning help us better predict maintenance work on equipment and potential failures based on collected IoT data. The result? An improved customer experience and lower operational costs.
Dynamics 365
Microsoft’s Dynamics365 Apps contribute to the optimization of business processes focused on, for example, Field Service, Manufacturing, and Logistics. Combining this with the IoT creates new opportunities to simplify business processes and improve the customer experience.
Managed Cloud
An important starting point for any IoT initiative is the central cloud environment where all data is stored. And since, over time, we are talking about huge amounts of data, we have specific ready-to-go configurations based on Azure IoT available for IoT where it comes to computing power, performance, and storage capacity.
Underlined Text Mining
When IoT is deployed in a production or service process or, for example, in a logistics chain, our standard Process Mining tools can help to quickly gain insights and remove bottlenecks.
Power Platform
The low-code/no-code Power Platform can be used to perform automated processes based on data from IoT, for example when exceeding a certain threshold. This can be applied directly to the work process via a PowerApp.
Managed back-up
When the data connected to an IoT case is of great value, it is vital that you organize the back-up and recovery of that data well in advance. This way, you can always revert to a backed-up version if necessary.
Target to data
Target to Data makes the connection between data, insights, applications and organisational objectives such as profit, minimising costs and customer satisfaction.
Connect Plus
You can create the most value by combining IoT data with data from other applications and (public) data sources. Connect Plus Integration Services is an Azure-based service bus that enables these links to be implemented and managed quickly and easily.
Managed Security
Protecting systems is becoming increasingly important. We have developed a service specifically for IoT contexts where large amounts of (user) data is stored that continuously monitors and optimizes security.
Get in touch
Tired of lagging behind the rest of the market? Want to get ahead of your competition? Then it’s time to partner with us. We can help you get where you want to be.
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