{"id":9338,"date":"2020-10-14T10:20:26","date_gmt":"2020-10-14T17:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.couchbase.com\/blog\/?p=9338"},"modified":"2025-06-13T23:42:30","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T06:42:30","slug":"architecting-edge-computing-solutions-couchbase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.couchbase.com\/blog\/architecting-edge-computing-solutions-couchbase\/","title":{"rendered":"Architect Offline-First & Couchbase Edge Computing Solutions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Release 1.0 of Couchbase for mobile was announced<\/a> in 2014, making it the industry\u2019s first NoSQL mobile database for offline first applications. Offline first<\/a> is an application development paradigm that ensures that the functionality of the apps is unaffected by the state of network connectivity. In recent years, a distributed computing framework called edge computing has gained<\/a> a lot of traction with the emergence of real-time business-critical applications<\/a> and services that must be responsive, resilient to network disruptions, use network bandwidth efficiently, and are required to comply with privacy and regulatory policies. You can learn more about distributed cloud architectures and use cases in this related whitepaper<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you think about it, the core tenets of edge computing are fundamentally the same as those of offline first business critical mobile apps \u2013 speed, availability, scalability, and data privacy and security. Since it was first released several years ago, Couchbase platform has been used in numerous real world production deployments<\/a> requiring offline first mobile apps, so extending the platform to support edge computing is a natural next step.<\/p>\n

Couchbase for Offline First Mobile Apps<\/h2>\n

In order for users to be able to use mobile apps in offline mode, the data required by those apps needs to be persisted locally instead of on remote cloud servers. This requires local storage that can be embedded within the mobile apps themselves. Couchbase Lite<\/a> is a full-featured embedded NoSQL JSON database that natively supports all the major mobile platforms, including iOS<\/a>, Android<\/a>, and Windows<\/a>.
\nIn addition to providing local embedded storage, Couchbase Lite also ensures that the data in local storage is consistent with the cloud backend database. The Couchbase Sync Gateway<\/a> allows secure data routing and data synchronization between Couchbase Lite enabled clients and the backend Couchbase Server database.<\/p>\n

With the Couchbase Lite and Sync Gateway products, you can enable both of the core capabilities of offline first apps, local storage and sync.<\/p>\n

Couchbase for Edge Computing<\/h2>\n

Edge computing is a distributed computing framework that distributes data storage and processing, bringing it closer to the apps that generate or consume the data. The storage and processing of data and movement of data between the data storage entities are two key attributes of a solution. A data platform such as Couchbase fits the bill perfectly.<\/p>\n

The \u201cedge\u201d in edge computing applications refers to the place where data is generated and processed. As such, the edge is a spectrum. It can be a standalone device such as smartphone, tablet, PoS terminal, laptop, IoT device, etc. Or it can be an aggregation point for data generated and consumed by a number of downstream clients. In the latter case, the edge could be a micro data center<\/a>. The number of edge data centers required can range from a few hundred to several thousand depending on the application.<\/p>\n

Distributed Cloud Architectures<\/h2>\n

Couchbase is the ideal data platform for supporting cloud-to-edge and distributed cloud architectures because it includes all the required components in one integrated solution. In addition to data storage and flexible deployment capabilities which allow data to be stored and processed on any public\/private cloud or on-prem data centers, it also provides sync technology that can scale to hundreds of thousands of concurrent edge clients and edge data centers.<\/p>\n

Edge computing deployments can be normalized into three architectures: the edge at the client tier, the edge at the intermediate tier, and a hybrid model that spans both tiers. I\u2019ll discuss all three architectures below.<\/p>\n

The Edge at the Client Tier<\/h3>\n

The simplest model of the \u201cedge\u201d is a standalone device. In this architecture, the data is processed locally by the applications that generate or consume it. As long as the client is up, you get 100% availability because your application is always on, even if the internet connection to the backend cloud data center is disrupted. Since all the data is processed locally, you get real-time responses. Finally, any sensitive data generated by the app never has to leave the client device, which alleviates any privacy concerns.<\/p>\n

How does Couchbase fit in?<\/p>\n