Edge computing firm Scale Computing Inc. today announced that it has closed a $55 million funding round led by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital.

Indianapolis-based Scale Computing will use the capital to accelerate product development initiatives and restructure debt.

Historically, a task such as processing error logs from a sensor installed in a factory often involved significant delays. Error logs had to be sent from the sensor to a remote data center for analysis. Then, the results of the analysis had to be sent back to the factory from the data center.

Increasingly, companies are moving to reduce data processing times by deploying edge computing systems at factories and other edge locations. Information can travel much quicker to an on-site edge computing system installed in a factory than to a remote data center. As a result, companies gain the ability to analyze their information faster. 

Scale Computing provides a platform known as the SC//Platform that makes it easier to set up and maintain edge computing infrastructure. Managing an edge computing environment requires a variety of software tools that companies often have to source from different suppliers. According to Scale Computing, its SC//Platform provides all the necessary software tools in a single bundle.

The SC//Platform includes a hypervisor based on the open-source KVM virtualization tool built into the Linux operating system. The hypervisor removes the need for companies to purchase virtualization software from an external supplier, according to the company. Customers can run both virtual machines and software containers in their SC//Platform deployments.

Alongside its virtualization features, Scale Computing provides features for managing the storage hardware in an edge computing environment. The SC//Platform includes a load balancer that optimizes how data moves to and from storage. The platform also eases certain maintenance tasks, such as the management of flash storage drives. 

To ensure the reliability of edge computing environments, SC//Platform includes a tool that automatically fixes common errors. If an error leads to an outage, customers can use the platform’s built-in disaster recovery features to recover lost data. Scale Computing makes it possible to create backup copies of data and optionally send them to a remote cloud-based disaster recovery environment.

The company also has a presence in other segments of the edge computing market. As part of its product portfolio, it offers preconfigured edge computing appliances. Additionally, it sells a cloud service called SC//Fleet Manager that allows administrators to perform common infrastructure maintenance tasks through a centralized browser-based interface. 

Scale Computing says that its technology supports a wide range of edge computing use cases. Customers can deploy the SC//Platform at branch offices, in stores and on ships, among other environments. 

“A typical data center deployment represents hundreds or thousands of servers at one or two locations,” said Scale Computing Chief Executive Officer Jeff Ready. “On the other hand, a typical edge deployment is a handful of servers each at hundreds or thousands of locations. This requires a completely different approach to deployment and management, and Scale Computing has continually met the challenges of this fast growing market.”

The growing enterprise adoption of edge computing is also creating revenue opportunities for startups in other segments. Systems deployed at the edge of the network often have to be connected to other parts of a company’s infrastructure, such as its public cloud environment. Denmark-based Onomondo ApS, a startup with a networking platform focused on this task, last week raised $21 million in funding. 

Image: Scale Computing