Edge Computing & Retail: Managing Edge at Scale
Why implement Edge computing in Retail, and what does it take to scale it across thousands of locations?
In the retail industry, high availability and innovation are critical to business success. Retail stores in remote locations or areas with unreliable internet connection can experience crippling business disruptions when their Point-of-Sale (POS) system fails due to internet outages, halting their ability to process transactions. In order to remain competitive in modern Retail, seamless operations independent of connectivity are essential.
Use Cases for Retail and Edge Computing
Beyond ensuring high availability, there are many reasons for retail organizations to implement Edge computing at individual store locations. Applications related to in-store operations such as self-checkout kiosks, digital signage, fraud detection, staff productivity systems, and sales tax calculators all require computing resources to function effectively. Deploying these as containerized applications at the Edge, rather than in the cloud, can lower infrastructure costs and reduce latency.
Additionally, many organizations are beginning to leverage Computer Vision applications for different use cases, including:
- Self-Checkout Systems: Identifying items and automating checkout processes.
- Customer Behavior Analysis: Monitoring shopping patterns and dwell time using in-store cameras.
- Proximity Marketing: Use location-based technology to send targeted advertisements or promotional content to consumers based on their physical proximity to a specific location.
- Inventory Management: Automating stock tracking and detecting empty shelves.
These applications require deploying AI at the Edge, often demanding advanced computing capacity through Graphic Processing Units (GPU’s) to process large amounts of data during AI operations. Due to latency and cost constraints, it is more efficient to run these applications at the Edge.
Challenges and Considerations
There are several restraints unique to the Retail industry that make it more difficult to implement Edge effectively than in other industries.
- Managing Edge Devices & Applications at Scale: For large Retail organizations with thousands, or even tens of thousands of store locations, managing devices and applications at such a large scale can be daunting. Some locations deploy multiple devices in each store location, creating the need to manage the health and state of tens of thousands of devices and applications. This requires an advanced management plane with robust alerting and metrics. Additionally, organizations need the ability to troubleshoot remotely and take remediative actions, such as rebooting or re-imaging.
- Physical Constraints of Retail Stores: Retail stores vary in location. They can be in downtown city locations, shopping malls, or suburban strip malls. Physical space inside of these stores is limited, mounting a large server rack in the back of retail stores is typically impractical. Instead, Edge devices must be compact enough to be able to fit in a small closet or on desks in back offices without occupying excessive space.
- Technical Skills Limitations of In-Store Employees: Most retail employees lack the technical knowledge to install, provision servers, or troubleshoot the device when something goes wrong. As a result, It’s critical that Edge devices are self-provisioning. When new devices are shipped to stores, they should automatically image and deploy necessary applications upon being powered on and connected to the internet, requiring minimal human intervention. Devices must also be simple to use so that in the event of hardware failure a replacement device can be shipped and easily installed with a plug-and-play setup.
Artisan Studios’ Turnkey Solution
To address these challenges, Artisan Studios has created a turnkey solution, the Artisan Edge Platform, tailored specifically to the Retail industry. This approach leverages an API-based management plane deployed in AWS, allowing organizations to monitor and manage clusters of Edge devices across thousands of store locations with ease. Artisan Studios partners with SimplyNUC to provide organizations with devices, of which are compact enough to fit into a backpack and can self-provision immediately once powered on and connected to the internet. The Artisan Edge Platform is fully powered by AWS, leveraging services such as Amazon EKS, Amazon RDS, Amazon CloudFront, and Amazon DynamoDB.
This solution simplifies managing Edge devices and applications at scale, providing organizations the ability to remotely provision, reboot, re-image, and de-provision devices at the scale of thousands of locations. It also supports store-specific application deployments through DevOps capabilities. While deploying Edge in Retail involves challenges, the potential benefits—such as the ability to run business critical applications despite internet connectivity challenges—make it a worthwhile investment. With solutions like Artisan Edge Platform offering streamlined implementation, the future of Edge computing looks more exciting than ever.
