The shift to edge computing is happening fast — here’s why

As intuitive as the need for edge computing seems, driving business value on the edge will not be a trivial undertaking for IT or business leaders. For starters, definitions and formalisms are still fluid, and they tend to have many nuances.

Brian Hopkins

Gartner, for example, has underscored that, unlike the cloud, the edge is not a style of computing but a topology “where the boundaries between the physical and digital worlds are blurred.” Forrester Research defines edge computing as a “family of technologies that distributes data and services where they best optimize outcomes in a growing set of connected assets.” But Forrester analyst Brian Hopkins stressed that edge should not be viewed as a technology to buy but rather understood as “a new compute paradigm.”

There is general agreement that today’s version of edge computing is not divorced from the cloud. Gartner analysts Thomas Bittman and Bob Gill designated “a connection to a broader digital world” as a defining characteristic of edge computing, explaining in an August 2018 report that a sensor connected only to a local computing device “isn’t at the edge of anything. It’s just a sensor, sending data to a local computer with which only local people can interact.” The edge, they added, implies a core. IDC analyst Ashish Nadkarni, an enterprise infrastructure expert, also pointed to the “need to collect, store and analyze data in a cost-efficient manner” as a major factor in the enterprise’s shift to the edge, but he argued that to maximize the edge’s value, companies will need to merge their IT and operational technology architectures and practices.

Got edge strategy?

Jay Ferro

Veteran IT leader and angel investor Jay Ferro is hyperaware of edge computing.

“Do I have vendors telling me I need an edge strategy?” he said. “Daily. ‘Jay, get the latest information in edge computing. Jay, are you taking advantage of IoT/edge? Buy this service, invest in this platform!’ CIOs always get carpet bombed, but edge computing and IoT are probably what I get the most emails on.”

Named CIO at Quikrete, the largest manufacturer of packed concrete in the United States, in September 2018, Ferro said that at present his focus is on “blocking and tackling” IT issues. But he believes edge computing –while not without risks — will be a “liberating” force for technologists. “Bringing compute to where the business is happening is a good thing.”

In short, there are as many ideas about edge computing out there as there are research houses — and vendors. The latter, to be sure, are rushing to harness their products to this new computing mode — products that will rapidly become obsolete because the field is evolving so fast. Edge deployments implemented in 2018 and 2019 will be replaced Indeed, the shift to edge computing, pegged to be a $7 billion market “The world is not composed of just the edge and the center; there is a lot of compute that can happen in between, and that is what is unfortunately called fog computing,” said computer scientist Richard Soley, executive director of the IIC and CEO and founder of Object Management Group, an industry standards consortium.

The distance between the centralized data center and the sensors, data actuators and other devices on the edge is not a straight line, but a many-layered ecosystem of regional data centers, micro data centers, cloudlets, edge servers, personal home assistants, edge controllers and embedded AI.

“The hard part about edge computing,” Soley said, “comes down to, ‘How do we architect our solution to best use our resources?'” He added that IT leaders will need to figure out how much compute can be done at the edge, how much in the center — or along the way to the center — and where the data pipes are small.

Richard Soley

“It sounds simple, but it can be extremely complicated, especially if data resources change over time and if the computer resources change over time,” Soley said.

Groups such as the IIC and projects like the Open Glossary of Edge Computing are working on developing standard definitions and architectures. Meanwhile, edge products tend to be highly customized and designed for specific cases. 

Here are some examples of companies finding value at the edge, and advice from their vendor partners on getting an edge strategy off the ground.