Edge‑Cloud Collaboration: Concepts, Architecture, and Use Cases

Edge computing is a distributed open platform located near data sources that integrates network, compute, storage, and application capabilities to provide intelligent services at the edge, meeting critical requirements such as agile connectivity, real‑time processing, data optimization, intelligent applications, security, and privacy.

The technology’s core attributes include connectivity, first‑point data entry, constraints (environmental and resource), distribution, and convergence of IT and OT. Edge‑cloud (or “edge‑cloud”) collaboration leverages these attributes to create cross‑value (CROSS) by combining the global, non‑real‑time strengths of cloud computing with the local, real‑time strengths of edge computing.

A reference architecture is proposed that spans EC‑IaaS, EC‑PaaS, and EC‑SaaS layers on the edge and corresponding cloud layers, defining resource, data, intelligent, application, business, and service coordination capabilities. Key scenarios include industrial IoT, smart transportation, device optimization, process optimization, full‑value‑chain optimization, smart homes, wide‑area network access, edge‑cloud platforms, and MEC.

Typical use cases illustrate how edge‑cloud collaboration enables predictive maintenance for elevators, vehicle‑infrastructure coordination, battery‑manufacturing process optimization, refrigerator supply‑chain optimization, virtual factories, intelligent home automation, SD‑WAN cost reduction, and low‑latency video streaming and security monitoring.

Critical enabling technologies comprise network slicing, TSN, OPC UA, PLC‑IoT, industrial SDN, AI chips, stream analytics, digital twins, lightweight containers, serverless computing, and orchestration of virtual network functions (VNF) and edge applications.