Gartner – The Edge Manifesto - Digital Business, Rich Media, Latency Sensitivity and the Use of Distributed Data Centers

Digital business today requires easy access to rich content by users, often through mobile devices. To optimize the user experience, Gartner believes the topology of networked data centers will evolve over the next five years from a centralized, mega data center approach to one augmented by multiple, smaller sources and sinks of content located in distributed, enterprise-owned data centers, hosting providers, or the cloud. The edge manifesto borrows from the real estate slogan "location, location, location." The concept is to avoid issues of latency and congestion by placing compute resources and content closer to concentrations of users and sources of data.

Highlights:

• Invest in architecture and technologies that help address the increased criticality and user experience that digital business demands.
• Collaborate cross-functionally to ensure that edge planning efforts fall under a cross-skilled engineering team or an architect who oversees compute, cloud, and networking as well as business applications.
• Leverage best practices from vertical industries that use the Internet to deliver video or rich media.

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Topology of networked data centers will push over the next five years from a centralized, mega data center approach, to one augmented by multiple, smaller, distributed sources and sinks of content and information, whether located in distributed, enterprise-owned data centers, hosting providers, colocation or the cloud.

Gartner, The Edge Manifesto: Digital Business, Rich Media, Latency Sensitivity and the Use of Distributed Data Centers, Bob Gill, 15 June 2017.

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