Recent Investments and Team-Ups by AWS, Microsoft, and Google Demonstrate Their Intent to ‘Play It Big’ in Emerging Edge IT

C. Drake

Summary Bullets:

• The market for edge computing solutions is becoming increasingly competitive as the hyperscale cloud providers announce new service offerings and telco partnerships.
• Going forward, solution providers will benefit from efforts to more clearly demonstrate and articulate the use cases and advantages of edge computing.

The recent launch of AWS Snowcone represents a further moment of intensification in the increasingly competitive market for edge infrastructure solutions. AWS Snowcone is a new edge computing and data transfer device from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and is the smallest member of the AWS Snow Family of devices. At just under five pounds, the solution is designed to be highly portable and able to fit in a standard mailbox or a small backpack. It is also designed to withstand harsh environmental conditions and support a range of use cases outside the traditional data center – especially those that lack consistent network connectivity. Although Snowcone customers with internet connectivity will be able to send data to the AWS cloud using Ethernet or WiFi with AWS DataSync, one interesting innovation is the option to ship the device to AWS. This makes it suitable for edge use cases without any network connectivity, including drilling platforms, military operation sites, and remote filming locations.

Edge Computing Could Offer a Solution to Blockchain’s Limitations

C. Drake

Summary Bullets:

• A blockchain’s scalability is currently limited by the amount of power it consumes and the time lag involved when processing transactions across its distributed ledger.
• By enabling local data processing and storage, edge computing could offer a solution to blockchain’s current scalability limitations.

The disruptions to global and local supply chains which occurred as a consequence of the COVID-19 crisis have refocused attention on the ability of blockchain to enhance supply chain resilience. However, blockchain continues to face several basic challenges that prevent the technology from becoming truly scalable. These include the amount of power it consumes and the time lag that is involved when processing transactions across its distributed ledger. As a blockchain expands, both its power consumption and the amount of data processing latency increase, with inhibiting implications for platform scalability.

COVID-19: GlobalData Survey Reveals Bright Spots for IT Spending

R. Bhattacharyya

Summary Bullets:

• A substantial portion of survey respondents revealed that IT budgets will remain relatively unchanged, and an encouraging 20% even indicated budget increases due to COVID-19.
• Communication and collaboration, cloud services, security, networking, and mobility spending will be most resilient; at least 30% of respondents expect spending increases for these technologies.

Although infectious disease experts had warned of the potential of a pandemic for years, COVID-19 took most organizations by surprise. The majority of large enterprises had extensive business continuity and resiliency plans in place, but most were still scrambling to keep employees securely connected when governments mandated that all but the most essential workers stay home. This sudden change in normal business operations, combined with the economic impact of the global lockdown, has (not surprisingly) influenced IT spending plans for the remainder of the year – and most likely into 2021.