Three Types of Edge Computing Environments and their Impact on Physical Infrastructure Selection

Edge computing deployments are on the rise, as more and more use cases are conceived for local compute, storage, and networking. Although there are fundamental needs of all edge compute sites to ensure availability, environmental differences can be significant which impact the specific attributes of the systems you deploy. In this paper, we define three types of environments for micro data centers: (1) IT environments (2) commercial & office environments, and (3) industrial & harsh environments. We discuss the challenges of each and share best practices for physical infrastructure deployments for each environment.