  Public edge platforms have drawn increasing attention from both academia and
industry. In this study, we perform a first-of-its-kind measurement study on a
leading public edge platform that has been densely deployed in China. Based on
this measurement, we quantitatively answer two critical yet unexplored
questions. First, from end users' perspective, what is the performance of
commodity edge platforms compared to cloud, in terms of the end-to-end network
delay, throughput, and the application QoE. Second, from the edge service
provider's perspective, how are the edge workloads different from cloud, in
terms of their VM subscription, monetary cost, and resource usage. Our study
quantitatively reveals the status quo of today's public edge platforms, and
provides crucial insights towards developing and operating future edge
services.
