Edge Computing Total Cost of Ownership: Volume Matters

Generally speaking, enterprise do it yourself information technology makes business sense when volumes are high, as it generally makes sense to own infrastructure used at high levels, rather than renting capacity. 

At low volumes of use, renting often makes more sense. That seems to apply for enterprises looking at edge computing, according to a Mobile Experts analysis. Over three years, “it costs about 35 percent to 55 percent more to access a hyperscaler's cloud for a heavy industrial workload at the edge,” Mobile Experts says.

That mirrors what we tend to find for other information or communications choices as well. At low volumes, it almost always makes sense to use a hosted “voice as a service” solution. At high volume (at large headquarters locations, for example) it virtually always makes sense to buy and operate voice servers. 

At least in part, that is because voice as a service is purchased “by the line,” while owned servers, up to a point, impose no additional recurring costs for heavy usage. 

cloud storage veruss on premises storage shows similar total cost of ownership curves. In many cases, in high volume, premises storage has lower total cost of ownership. Many enterprises find the same trend for computing cycles: in lower volumes, cloud can be cheaper; at high volumes a premises solution might be cheaper.