If you’re responsible for the health of your company’s network, you already know the pressure that comes with every new device that touches it. AV has become one of the biggest blind spots in modern IT environments, and the fear is real: all it takes is one unmonitored codec, one poorly secured display, or one unmanaged AV-over-IP endpoint to introduce a vulnerability that puts your entire organization at risk. And when a breach happens, it’s rarely the vendor who gets blamed. It’s you.

But here’s the part most leaders never see coming: the biggest risks often don’t start with malicious actors. They start with rushed deployments, shadow IT decisions, half-documented systems, or an AV integrator who installs hardware without aligning it to your security policies. And somewhere in that chaos, someone in the C-suite wants the install done fast, Facilities wants it to "just work," and your team is expected to secure it all.

There’s a moment every IT leader encounters, a moment when a seemingly harmless AV upgrade exposes a gap no one anticipated. What happens next depends entirely on what you put in place long before that moment arrives.

Many of you reading this already understand edge computing, although it probably means different things to different people. By definition, edge computing is done at the edge of the network, close to the data source. In cloud computing, data is sent back to the cloud for processing. So is it just a fancy way of differentiating between distributed and centralized computing, some older terms for similar concepts? Perhaps, as the computer and software industries excel at developing new terminology for old concepts applied to new platforms. 

We joke a little here, but let's look at an example. Apple's fancy term for software-enhanced photography and computational photography is taking advantage of the considerable processing power of today's iPhones to do some serious editing, enhancement, and tricks with images. Could that be done in the cloud? Yes, as Google Photos does with any browser-equipped device. So what are the advantages of doing this at the edge? If you have the computational power, edge computing can enable faster, more responsive applications. And the less potentially sensitive information that has to travel back and forth from the cloud, the more secure the application.

Security is important in edge computing. And edge computing is important in network monitoring and management of AV devices in internal networks. You don't want all those inherently insecure devices directly connected to the internet, as they present many attack points into your network for would-be hackers. Instead, an edge appliance or computer sits at the "edge" of your network, monitoring and collecting information and sending it back to the cloud to aggregate into other management systems. But how do you ensure the security of the edge appliance sitting in your Scottsdale, AZ offices from the wild and woolly internet? That’s what we explore further in this blog post.