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On Wednesday, Feb. 13, at 11 a.m. PST/2 p.m. EST/7 p.m. GMT, @eWEEKNews will host its monthly #eWEEKChat. The topic will be “Edge Computing: IT’s Newest Greenfield.” It will be moderated by Chris Preimesberger, eWEEK’s editor in chief.
This month, we have three special guests featured on the show: Jason Shepherd, Dell Technologies CTO of IoT and Edge Computing; Natalia Mackevicius, GM of Microsoft Azure Stack; and Ramya Ravichandar, Foghorn IoT VP of Products. These three experts will bring outstanding perspectives to this topic.
Some quick facts:
Topic: “Edge Computing: IT’s Newest Greenfield”
Date/time: Feb. 13, 2019 @11a.m. PST/2 p.m. EST/7 p.m. GMT
Hosted by: @eWEEKNews
Moderator: Chris Preimesberger: @editingwhiz
Tweetchat handle: You can use #eWEEKChat to follow/participate via Twitter itself, but it’s easier and more efficient to use the real-time chat room link at CrowdChat. Instructions are on that page.
Why Computing Is Moving Out to the Edge
Looks like the IT industry is rapidly moving its flanks to the edge—to the edge of a whole new greenfield IT industry that may turn out to be as important as, if not more important than, the cloud itself.
That could be hyperbole, but be assured that’s not intended. This isn’t theory; it’s already happening.
Edge computing, generally, is any type of computing that takes place outside a data center. Smartphones, smart TVs, laptops, desktop PCs, small servers and routers, sensors and other similar devices can be considered “edge” devices. Edge computing also entails a growing genre of infrastructure-class computing platforms aimed at hyperscale cloud data centers to the network edge that are playing an increasingly important role in a distributed IT computing environment driven by the rise of the internet of things (IoT).
All of this has to be managed and managed effectively.
The closer proximity to computing resources makes an edge-computing platform much more efficient for workloads that require near-immediate response times. For example, these use cases can range from security networks to video, media delivery to IoT and ad tech to finance.
“The internet has grown bigger and bigger but, from an end user or client perspective, it hasn’t grown closer and closer,” StackPath co-founder and CEO Lance Crosby, generally considered the pioneer of edge computing, said. “The most secure and innovative applications today need to get data back and forth—and processed in between—faster. You don’t want security requests or urgent data hopping around the world. That’s what StackPath Edge Computing is all about. Process it faster, safer. Right at the edge.”
How It Will Affect Us All
How will this movement from centralized systems to smaller, more distributed IT impact enterprises and us as consumers? Will we even notice a difference—outside of a little more speed in getting things done? How will it affect security? The more systems, large or small, that are in production, the more attack surfaces there are for the bad guys looking for information, data and illicit profits.
We’ll have a special expert guest on our #eWEEKchat Feb. 13: Jason Shepherd (pictured), CTO of IoT and edge computing at Dell Technologies. Talk about someone who’s in the middle of all of this new IT transformation!
I moderated a panel at VMworld a few years ago, and Shepherd was one of our guest speakers. He is responsible for CTO evangelism, standards enablement, strategic ecosystem development and solution planning for the Dell Technologies IoT Solutions Division. His proven track record as a thought leader in the IoT market is evidenced through his leadership in efforts building up the award-winning Dell IoT partner ecosystem and establishing the vendor-neutral, open-source EdgeX Foundry project to facilitate greater interoperability in IoT edge computing.
Shepherd has spent his career at both Dell and tech startups in roles spanning CTO, engineering and marketing; he holds 14 granted and 11 pending U.S. patents. I’m looking forward to hearing his take on this huge and important trend.
Some of the questions we’re likely to ask include:
- What efficiencies does edge computing bring to the table that weren’t available previously?
- How does a company know when it needs to invest in edge computing technology?
- Does expanding a company’s IT system to include the edge open it up to more security issues?
- What are among the first verticals to deploy edge computing, and how are they using it?
Join us Feb. 13 at 11 a.m. Pacific/2 p.m. Eastern/7 p.m. GMT for 30 to 40 minutes. Chances are good that you’ll learn something valuable.
#eWEEKchat 2019 Schedule: All Tweetchats start at 11 a.m. PT / 2 p.m. ET
Feb. 13: Edge Computing: IT’s Newest Greenfield
March 13: How Enterprises Can Get Truth into All Their Data
April 10: Where Are We Going to Store All This Data?
May 8: The Status of DevOps and Agile Development in 2019
June 12: New Trends and Services in Network-Centric Security
July 10: How to Plan a New Data Center Development
Aug. 14: Is Low- and No-Code Application Development Still Trendy?
Sept. 11: TBA
Oct. 9: New Mobile Apps, Devices We Can Expect This Christmas
Nov. 13: New Tools for Enterprise Collaboration
Dec. 11: Predictions and Wild Guesses for IT in 2020