We hear a lot these days about “observability”, and many in the network and IT space think this is just another cynical “create-another-category” move by some analyst firms. After all, the distinction between the new concept of observability and good old-fashioned monitoring seems pretty subtle and subjective. In fact, the most common remark I get…
Our Edge Computing Series as a Report
My recent blog series on edge computing is now available as a special report, in zipped PDF format. Please download it HERE! Email and RSS:
Edge Computing Part 5: Edge Networking and Security
This is the fifth and final blog in my series on edge computing, and in it we’ll talk about two critical issues. First, how do we network “the edge” to realize the capabilities buyers expect. Second, how do we secure the edge, given that its real-world relationship target makes it a profound security risk. Any…
Edge Computing Part 4: Adapting Current Technologies to the Edge
What can we learn, if anything, from those applications already considered “edge computing”? We have cloud applications that are event-driven today, and some of them aren’t even IoT. We also have some applications that might not seem event-driven at all. Obviously, we have local edge computing in place for most of the “IoT” applications enterprises…
Edge Computing Part 3: What Might an Edge Architecture Look Like?
Wherever “the edge” is hosted, what gets hosted is software. If there is such a thing as “edge software” as a subset of “software” or “cloud software” then there has to be development, and development has to be based on some set of what’s popularly called “middleware”, a toolkit that facilitates development by providing a…
Edge Computing Part Two: Will Cloud Providers Own the Edge?
Is “the edge” an extension of the public cloud? That may well be the biggest question we face in edge computing, because it determines what players are likely to dominate the evolution of edge computing, and who will frame how edge applications are written. Those factors may then determine just how fast we get a…
Edge Computing: Part One
While there are surely many contenders for the most critical and hyped technology, edge computing is my choice. 5G depends on the edge, and so does IoT. Many believe it’s the future of cloud computing. Many believe it’s the future of premises computing. Everybody seems to believe that it will make them money, despite the…
Contrasting Supplier and Buyer Views of New Technologies
What do enterprises, vendors, and service/cloud providers think about cloud computing, networking, 5G, the edge, and other stuff? How do they see the future of these technologies? I’ve been trying to get those questions answered, and what I’ve found could justify calling the effort a “qualified success”. It tells us a lot about enterprises, but…
A Tech-Conference Vision of the Future of Networking
It’s always smart to get a broad view of the future, and conferences can provide that. A good article titled “Open source, programmability, and as-a-service play a big role in future networks” discussing what happened at the Future:Net 2021 symposium was provided in Network World, and so we’ll start a two-part view of the future…
The Telco “Crossroads” is an Illusion
Are operators really at a crossroads? They’ve suffered through continuous profit-per-bit pressure on traditional network services for over a decade. Improving that means enhancing revenue per bit, reducing cost per bit, or maybe both, and the choice operators make will have a major impact on the revenues vendors can expect, and which vendors can expect…