Hybrid Cloud Provides the Foundation for Edge Computing

Over the next 3 years, enterprises will spend an average of 30% of their IT budgets on edge cloud computing, according to a 2019 report by Analysys Mason.

And with good reason. Edge computing takes place at or near the physical location of either the user or the source of the data. It follows, then, that placing computing services closer to these locations enables providers to offer faster, more reliable services to clients while also benefiting from the flexibility of hybrid cloud computing.

With edge computing, organizations can use and distribute a common pool of resources across a large number of locations. “The future of enterprise tech won’t be confined to the data center mothership – nor even the public cloud,” Network World points out. “Wedded to the Internet of Things, edge computing puts processing horsepower wherever it needs to go.”

Enable edge computing with hybrid cloud

Edge computing is an important part of a hybrid cloud vision that allows organizations to achieve a consistent application and operations experience. A hybrid cloud strategy using open standards is the path to having the full ecosystem of application services and infrastructures at your disposal, wherever you choose to run your software.

“We can look at the edge as the newest IT footprint, becoming an extension of the data center just like bare-metal, virtual environments, private cloud and public cloud,” writes Red Hat President and CEO Paul Cormier. “In a sense, edge computing is a summation of the other four footprints, blending pieces from each to create infrastructure aimed at tackling specific customer demands that traditional IT models cannot address.”

“If edge computing is going to be a realistic future for enterprise IT, it needs the hybrid cloud and open source to thrive,” says Cormier.

With edge computing, it’s important to support a consistent, flexible platform across every environment you choose. Services like integration, data, and analytics, as well as apps, need to work predictably both in the data center and on the edge. 

No one cloud provider or on-premises environment has everything an organization needs, and too often, proprietary solutions can restrict future choices and adaptability. Edge computing requires industry-wide collaboration to support its broad range of use cases. That’s where open source comes in.

To fully enable the capability to adapt to change without costly rebuilding, the hybrid cloud should be built on a consistent foundation of open source code. That way, operations, development, and security teams can build and manage a full IT stack in a standard, unifying platform that works on bare metal, virtual machines, private clouds, public clouds, and at the edge.

The greatest benefit of a hybrid cloud strategy is the ability to choose the optimal solution for each task or workload. A consistent, open platform can help you realize the goals of an edge computing strategy that distributes greater compute and storage power closer to data sources and users in your network.

Click here to learn about Red Hat’s approach to creating a successful edge computing stack.