Although edge computing is not new, it has been making steady gains in the cloud computing space. It has been rising in importance, it is maturing, and 2020 should be an exciting year for the edge computing space. First and foremost, three F’s will be driving edge computing forward.

The Three F’s

Fit, form, and function are the three essential F-words that underlie and drive the development of custom form factors. At its core, edge computing is characterized by great variety because each use case is different, and the cases span multiple industries. There are unique demands for storage, computing power, and networking that will significantly impact the development of custom form factors right from the processor level on up.

For example, HPE is heavily involved in leading a series C investment with John Chambers’ (former Cisco CEO) startup Pensando Systems which is planning to bring to market a custom programmable processor optimized for edge computing.

The Rise of Multi-Vendor Solutions

Maintaining edge computing platforms will push organizations to work with integrators to get the bandwidth and connectivity they need for their edge computing solutions instead of attempting to build and deploy their solutions. The most prominent benefits organizations are trying to get from edge computing include the flexibility to handle current and future AI demands and a system that can avoid latency issues and provide faster response times. Second, these requirements need edge computing systems to conduct complex processing that the cloud cannot support due to the unbridled proliferation of connected devices.

Edge Cloud Service Markets to Grow By Fifty Percent

This is the year public mega cloud providers, telecom companies, content delivery networks, data center colocation providers, and platform software providers are innovating to deliver essential (IaaS) infrastructure-as-a-service and advanced cloud-native programming services for distributed edge computing infrastructure. These providers are looking to provide IAAS and PAAS services capable of running independently, or with only minimal intermittent connectivity to the public cloud and data centers. This part of the market is likely to explode with growth over the next 12-24 months.

Organizations are eyeing edge computing as an investment strategy. This strategy to invest in edge computing is most certainly driven by the maturity of the edge platforms and the parallel developments in supporting technologies, including 5G and Wi-Fi6 connectivity, as well as the growing demand for use cases involving analytics and machine learning.