In this special guest feature, our friends over at Advantech takes a look at the shift to edge computing environments versus large, secure data centers, a trend in stark contrast to the other end of the spectrum where large cloud providers and on-premise data centers offer a wide range of computing, networking and storage options within carefully controlled environments. Ultimately, we need both based on their respective value. But if we look deeper into what lies between the two extremes, we find the hybrid – rugged systems that bring the high-performance data center computing power and functionality to the edge. Advantech is a global leader in the fields of IoT intelligent systems and embedded platforms.