Does Edge Computing Lessen Data Gravity?

Applications tend to cluster around locations where data density is highest. So data gravity would seem to work against  edge computing and in favor of hyperscale computing. But the rise of multi-cloud is a countervailing force, as data stores might therefore be less concentrated, especially to support internet of things use cases. 

source: Clarisights 

In many ways, that is in line with the traditional drivers of compute density and network latency, the ability to substitute local computing for wide area network costs and performance issues (latency or bandwidth), as well as the ability to substitute WAN transport for compute cost. 

In one sense, edge computing might help information technology professionals normalize data gravity, as edge processing shifts the value of the venue towards the edge.

How Much Real Experience Improvement from Edge Computing for Video Conferences?

Edge computing clearly will have its uses. But does edge computing improve experience for users of video conferencing apps? Specifically, can edge computing improve the quality of all-to-all conferencing sessions? 

It might be claimed that “a relevant use case for edge networks is boosting the quality of video webinars and the reliability of video conferencing calls.” 

Perhaps webinars might benefit. That is a point-to-multipoint communication, for the most part, and edge caching might plausibly improve experience by reducing some amount of latency on the downstream presenter-to-attendee links. But that is an arguable point, at least to the best of my knowledge. 

I’m much more skeptical about edge computing boosting the user experience for video conferences. To be sure, that is possibly true under certain circumstances. When all the users of a specific webinar or video conference call are within the premises, a single local area or a single metro area, edge computing should improve experience. 

It seems unclear whether similar advantages would be possible across large nations or globally, even if local edge caching were available at every end point area, but that might be my own layman’s ignorance. 

Edge caching works best when it is possible to predict what non-real-time content might be requested, which is why edge caching works for streaming video or audio services using content delivery networks. It is quite another challenge to optimize point-to-point and all-to-all communications when the content cannot be predicted, nor the locations. 

In other words, video conferencing is a dynamic and real-time interaction that seemingly benefits little from edge caching. 

Video conferencing is a point-to-point or “many-to-many” session, unlike watching a Netflix video, which can effectively be point-to-multipoint and therefore amenable to edge caching. 

Even when one can predict the day and time of a video conference, perhaps even the universe of potential participants, one cannot “cache” the content, which is live and unpredictable. 

Someone with a deeper understanding of how edge caching actually can improve video conferencing sessions might know how this is possible, but I cannot actually figure out why edge caching improves live “all-to-all” conferencing sessions, with the possible exception of executing the platform software on a device or locally.

Will Edge Cannibalize Some Cloud Infrastructure Spending in 2021?

Will edge computing cannibalize some public cloud growth in 2021? Some might be tempted to say “yes,” and Forrester appears to believe that will be the case. The amount of shift might be on the order of five percent of total cloud growth, Forrester estimates. 

Hyperscale public cloud growth has been on a tear over the past few years, but will “naturally decline from a whopping 42 percent in 2018 to a projected 24 percent by 2022 as the market matures,” Forrester says. “Hidden in this natural motion is another force: edge vendors capturing more cloud business.” 

Forrester also forecasts that computing as a service (public cloud including services such as Amazon Web Services and Alibaba and Aure) wil grow 35 percent  to $120 billion in 2021.

Orange Business Services to Resell Amazon Web Services

Orange Business Services and Amazon Web Services (AWS) say they will work together to provide a one-stop shop for Orange customers who wish to use AWS services. Orange Business Services and Amazon Web Services (AWS) say they will work together to provide a one-stop shop for Orange customers who wish to use AWS services. 

The agreement does not specifically address edge computing, as with AWS Wavelength that places AWS compute facilities in a telco data center at the edge of the telco network, as Verizon, Vodafone, KDDI and SK Telecom have done.

A dedicated Cloud Center of Excellence will be built on AWS, coordinating an extensive training and certification program for more than 3,000 Orange Business Services cloud, cybersecurity, digital and data experts. 

Enterprises will now have access to a one-stop-shop for all their Orange and AWS requirements through their trusted point of contact. 

Orange also has joined the AWS Channel Reseller Program, allowing Orange to resell AWS services to its customers. Typically, resellers or channel partners are compensated for sales volume.  

A dedicated Cloud Center of Excellence will be built on AWS, coordinating an extensive training and certification program for more than 3,000 Orange Business Services cloud, cybersecurity, digital and data experts. 

Enterprises will now have access to a one-stop-shop for all their Orange and AWS requirements through their trusted point of contact. 

Orange also has joined the AWS Channel Reseller Program, allowing Orange to resell AWS services to its customers. Typically, resellers or channel partners are compensated for sales volume.  

Savari 5G and MEC Use Case on Verizon Network

Renovo 5G Edge Use Case on Verizon Network

Automotive Apps Using Verizon 5G Edge

Automotive applications are getting an early test on Verizon’s 5G Edge platform, specifically using Amazon Web Services Wavelength cloud computing integrated at the edge of the Verizon 5G network. 

The Renovo automotive data platform operating on the 5G Edge platform  intelligently indexes and filters Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) vehicle-data in near-real time. 

Savari is testing how the high bandwidth and ultra-low latencies enabled by 5G and MEC can support applications that can provide warning information to drivers and pedestrians in near real-time, Verizon says. 

LG Electronics  is piloting a next-generation C-V2X platform using Verizon 5G Edge and AWS Wavelength to move data in near real time, which includes a service that is intended to improve driving safety with secure information sharing between vehicles, mobile devices and transportation infrastructures.

What Impact of Covid-19 Work-at-Home on Cloud Computing Services?

A Computer Economics survey in August and September 2020 finds a split pattern of information technology operations spending: 30 percent increasing spending while 29 percent were decreasing. About 41 percent of respondents say there has been no change in spending. 

Back in April and May 2020, 41 percent of respondents reported unchanged spending. But 30 percent already had made moves to reduce IT budgets in response to  To the extent there had Covid-19 work from home rules.

source: Computer Economics

The 30 percent of respondents who reported cutting spending seems not to have budged much. In the fall, the percentage of respondents reporting lower spending was still 29 percent, substantially the same as the 30 percent who reported cuts in April and May 2020. 

What changed was the percentage of respondent firms that boosted spending, probably for hardware, software or services related to supporting remote workers. “Of course, the big reason for increasing budgets is to respond to the increased need for employees to work from home,” said David Wagner, Computer Economics senior research director. 

source: Computer Economics 

It is hard to separate out the response to Covid-19 remote work on cloud computing, which has been growing robustly before the work-from-home mandates were imposed. And even some firms that one might assume boosted cloud spending to support at-home workers eventually reduced spending from surge levels. 

Some studies suggest cloud revenue growth from 2020 to 2021 will be about 12.5 percent, perhaps lower than many would have expected, even under normal circumstances. The only issue is whether the work-from-home rules affected cloud computing uptake rates. And that might ultimately be a different matter from earlier expectations that cloud computing among smaller businesses, for example, would increase because of the pandemic. 

To some degree, the changes might hinge on whether customers are active about turning off or reducing payment for unused cloud services. It also will matter how much aggregate demand changed when workers shifted from offices to homes. In principle, that might have shifted the location of consumption, but not the volume of use. 

Though early in the pandemic many expected increased reliance on cloud computing, beyond growth already expected, we will have to wait and see what actually transpired. Covid impact might ultimately turn out to have been less of a change inducer than we expected. 

How Much Shift of Capex to Edge?

It is too early to say how edge computing might grow as a percentage of overall computing cost. or cloud computing cost. Centralized cloud computing has pushed more of the workload cost to remote data centers and away from on-device or local area networks (both examples of edge computing). 

But, historically, computing cost has arguably been concentrated at the edge, on board devices or on the premises. The shift to cloud computing has moved workload locations to “far edge,” so perhaps the better analogy is local versus remote computing.  

source: STL Partners

It is not yet clear how much the balance of capital investment will change over time, though edge investments will grow. The issue is not so much edge computing “on the premises” or “in the cloud” but likely how much of the workload moves to some “close to the premises” location. 

The reason is simple. Hybrid computing exists because many enterprises use a mix of owned infrastructure on the premises and cloud computing. What is new is a migration of some of that investment to new “edge” deployments, which might be on premises, near the premises or at other locations in a metro area. 

source: Cisco 

With one exception, enterprise workloads would seem to be key, as most “north-south” traffic from data centers to end users consists of video. Live videoconferencing will not benefit as much from edge computing, which remains a multipoint-to-multipoint, episodic use case. 

Entertainment video often benefits from edge caching, which arguably is a form of edge computing. 

The trade offs might be similar to communications network investment. Communication network costs always are disproportionately concentrated on the network edges. The past rule of thumb was that the access network represents about 80 percent of total capital investment and perhaps a higher percentage of operating cost as well. 

Among the reasons is resource sharing, which is highest in the core, least at the edge. Generally speaking, the greater the degree of sharing, the lower the per-customer share of cost. What differs is the percentage of cost incurred by service providers compared to end users. 

Most enterprise data generation happens at the edge. The issue is data processing.

If it is correct that, eventually, most enterprise computing happens at the edge, then one should also expect computing investment to shift to the edge. Whether that is “back to the traditional edge” (enterprise premises) or “to some new edge location” (off premises, but within a few miles) is what will be determined.

IBM Launches Cloud for Telecommunications

Nokia, Samsung, Cisco and 35 more partners have joined IBM’s Cloud for Telecommunications 

ecosystem, which aims to help accelerate 5G and edge services for customers.

The hybrid cloud architecture is designed to help telecommunications providers support cloud-native edge computing operations, 

source: IBM

Capgemini Edge Computing for Industry

Microsoft, Google Cloud Revenue Grows Faster than AWS, But Rule of Three Seems to Hold

Amazon Web Services grew revenue at a 29 percent rate in the third quarter. Google Cloud grew 45 percent in the same quarter, while Microsoft’s Azure business grew 48 percent. 

The faster growth rates for Microsoft and Google are about what you would expect in a market where the leader has about 33 percent share while number two has about 18 percent share and number three has share in single digits. 

source: Synergy Research Group 

Stable markets tend to have a market share structure led by three firms with market shares on a 4:2:1 pattern. In other words, the leader has twice the share of number two, which in turn has twice the share of number three. 

Bruce Henderson, founder of the Boston Consulting Group is credited with a couple of foundational ideas about business, including the notion of the experience curve, which explains how the cost of products decreases with volume, as well as the stable market share theorem. 

"A stable competitive market never has more than three significant competitors, the largest of which has no more than four times the market share of the smallest,” Henderson argued.

Sometimes known as “the rule of three,”  he argued that stable and competitive industries will have no more than three significant competitors, with market share ratios around 4:2:1.

So far, the cloud computing market seems to have the rough structure the rule would suggest, especially if one considers that Microsoft Azure includes both the computing “as a service” and “hosted applications” revenue streams, where Google and AWS revenues are almost exclusively from “computing as a service.” 

The point is that the rule of three might suggest the cloud computing market is stable, with price or other attacks unlikely to change the market share positions.