Is 2019 the Year IoT and Edge Computing Comes of Age?

The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the hottest technology topics of the moment – and for very good reasons.  We all know we’re living in an increasingly interconnected world and are constantly looking for new ways to take full advantage of it.

On a more personal level, our mobile smart devices have become our access point to the rapidly expanding digital universe surrounding us.  They are now so much a part of our lives that we tap, swipe or click our mobile phone an average of 2,617 times a day. That makes each of us an IoT end-point, as we progressively consume more information, data, and services. Our appetite is growing so fast that mobile data traffic is predicted to reach 930 exabytes by 2022, which is expected to be 20% of all IP traffic that year.

It’s no wonder that every major IT analyst firm has been focused on IoT for some time and that they all have edge computing included in their top strategic technology predictions for 2019. IDC predicts that IoT spending will reach $745 billion this year and there will be 31 billion end-points (things) connected by 2022.

While future predictions are always subject to change, you can’t get away from the fact that these are all very big numbers. IoT represents a new frontier for IT. It’s being driven by use cases that include everything from autonomous vehicles crammed with sensors and compute devices; farming and factory automation; smart cities and spaces; robotics and artificial intelligence (AI); energy and utilities; healthcare applications; and much more.

As more end-points are connected to the IoT, enabling edge computing strategies with advanced networking technologies such as NFV (Network Function Virtualization) and 5G telco capabilities will become increasingly critical. In many cases, data will need to be stored and processed nearer to where it’s captured or generated. This will need to be balanced with the volume of data that needs to be transmitted back to centralized or consolidated data centers. Hybrid and multi-cloud strategies, combined with robust security measures will become increasingly important.

There’s little doubt that open source solutions will continue to take a leading role in almost everything from edge to core to cloud. This includes a long list of things such as sensors, single board compute and smart devices, data storage, HPC and analytics, public/private/hybrid and multi-cloud implementations, automation and tooling, application software, security, NFV, and telecoms solution advances. OpenStack, StarlingX and Open Source Mano are particularly worth investigating.

So, where do you go to learn more?  The Open Infrastructure Summit has become a natural home for the open source community to collaborate on everything related to cloud, IoT, edge computing and much, much more. The next Summit will be in Denver, Colorado from April 29-May 1.

SUSE is sponsoring the event and I will be there learning more about the latest advancements. Why not join us to learn more about how open source is playing a part in IoT and edge computing?