Stack Infrastructure on Next-Generation Data Centers

Edge Value is What the Customer Says It Is

Value is what the customer says it is, not what any supplier claims it is. Edge computing provides an example. A survey of government information technology professionals might suggest that the value of edge computing is lower bandwidth costs and higher security, not support for latency-dependent applications. 

source: IDC, Lumen

Methodology Matters When Asking about Demand for "Edge Computing" Solutions

Methodology matters quite a lot when conducting market research. Consider a few different surveys that product distinctly-different results about enterprise information technology professional interest in edge computing. 

A study conducted by Forrester Research for Vertex Research found 83 percent of IT professionals in the tax software business are interested in a containerized edge tax software solution. That makes sense for tax preparers. If the network goes down, or if the remote computing platform goes down, the core business mission also is shut down. 

 

source: Vertex 

Among the key advantages is that such a solution eliminates the danger of the checkout process malfunctioning or not functioning. Think of the cash register or payment process for a retailer. The whole business grinds to a halt if payments cannot be processed. 

But other surveys produce dramatically different answers. 

A survey of 300 North American information technology professionals found some 39 percent of survey respondents say they have “no plans” to use edge data centers. That presumably refers to remote or off-site facilities, not an on-premises “edge” solution. 

source: Information Week, Network Computing 

How one asks questions shapes the nature of responses. 

Edge Computing is a "Middle of the Pack" Concern for Enterprise IT Professionals

Edge computing--at the moment--might be more a developing feature of cloud computing than a sizable discrete market, a survey of 300 North American information technology professionals indicates. 

Some 39 percent of survey respondents say they have “no plans” to use edge data centers. On the other hand, IT professionals are more likely to do so than are interested in satellite broadband, containers, Kubernetes, AIOps, IPv6 or network as a service. 

source: Information Week, Network Computing 

One way of looking at interest is that stand-alone “edge computing” services have not yet made much impact on enterprise spending. That does not mean edge computing will not be used more often in a decade. 

But such use cases might more often be a feature of a computing as a service purchase than an identifiable category of spending. 

Why Computing Ecosystems are More Important Now

As enterprise computing gets more complicated because it is far more distributed, new needs emerge, from security to management of workloads. And while data centers supplying computing “as a service” have been trying to create “ecosystems of value” for some time to maintain value and avoid commoditization, such moves also correspond to needs enterprises will have if they are to continue moving workloads to remote “as a service” platforms. 

source: Gartner

No Surprise: Network Security Dominates IT Professional Concerns

Network security was top of mind when 300 North American information technology professionals were surveyed by Information Week and Network Computing in March 2022. While security always is on such lists, the gap between concerns about security and all other issues is striking, but perhaps not surprising. 

source: Information Week, Network Computing 

By definition, distributed computing, virtualized networks and ecosystems used to “assemble” value from disparate sources all increase attack surfaces.

Is Multi-Access Edge Computing Going to Drive Value for Connectivity Providers by Reducing Bandwidth Cost?

Value in business sometimes is provided in ways not expected. Consider the value of edge computing, which always is said to be based on the ability to support ultra-low latency computation. 

But many surveys suggest connectivity service providers (especially in the mobile segment of the business) believe lower bandwidth costs are the top value provided by edge computing. 

source: Heavy Reading, Redhat