Dear Reader:
We are at a very exciting time in the evolution of industry itself as the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’
is now well underway! The Industrial Internet, enabled by pervasive connectivity and cloud
computing, is fundamentally changing the way business is done. The rise of powerful edge compute
devices further accelerates the convergence of the IT and OT domains and drives new IIoT
functionality. With this powerful distributed computing capability applications, analytics and logic
can be containerized, centrally managed, deployed and run directly on the industrial networking
infrastructure.
The functionality and use of edge compute is growing at a blistering pace. Previous metrics used to
define the evolution of computing functionality like Moore’s Law and memory size can no longer
adequately convey computing system performance characteristics. 90% of today’s data has been
generated in just the last two years. A realistic estimate in future data growth is an astounding
increase of at least ten-fold every two years or sooner. This explosion of data – ushering in the
advent of unlimited bandwidth with zero latency – presents an urgent need for IIoT systems to
transition compute to the edge devices. Accordingly, new edge compute devices are critical parts of
any IIoT system and will require definition by a new set of metrics including form factor, reliability,
distributed data capabilities, connectivity, interoperability and security.
The work of the IIC, especially the Edge Computing Task Group, is focused on these new capabilities.
We are investigating ways to manage and standardize the connection architectures, orchestration,
distribution and security of compute deployment. The articles in this issue address these
requirements and use cases for edge computing from several perspectives including device
interoperability, edge analytics, connectivity frameworks, smart buildings, the edge-cloud
continuum, machine learning and even the location of the industrial edge. These offer a good snap-
shot of the members’ view and interests on this topic within IIC.
Welcome to this edition of the Journal of Innovation – Edge Computing. As Co-chairs, we certainly
don’t think the work will stop here; rather, we are looking forward to meeting you at future IIC
events and driving this topic with you in Edge Computing Task Group meetings.
The Edge Computing Task Group co-chairs:
Lalit Canaran – Vice President, SAP SE
Todd Edmunds – Senior Solution Architect, Cisco Systems
Dr. Mitch Tseng – Distinguished Consultant, Huawei Technologies
IIC Journal of Innovation
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