Edge Computing

A distributed computing paradigm that brings computation and data storage closer to the location where it is needed, to improve response times and save bandwidth.

Edge computing is a distributed computing model that processes data closer to where it is generated or consumed, rather than relying on a centralized data center. By moving computation to the "edge" of the network -- near end users or IoT devices -- edge computing reduces latency, decreases bandwidth usage, and enables real-time processing.

Edge computing environments range from small IoT gateways to globally distributed CDN edge nodes. Cloud providers offer edge compute services such as Cloudflare Workers, AWS Lambda@Edge, and Deno Deploy, which run application code at points of presence around the world.

Edge computing is directly relevant to API gateway architecture. An edge-deployed API gateway processes requests at the nearest edge location to the client, handling authentication, rate limiting, request routing, and response caching without a round trip to a central server. This approach significantly reduces API response times, especially for geographically distributed users, and provides inherent resilience against regional outages.