Data Center World 2020: A Virtual Experience

With the demand for low latency and large data set applications expected to grow substantially, compute is being distributed to many edge locations which may be operated by cloud service providers, enterprises or communications service providers. These edge computing deployments might be a mini-data center installed in a telco central office, several racks of enterprise equipment dropped on a factory floor, a micro DC contained in a wall box in a retail outlet, or an autonomous vehicle. There are many challenges with moving compute to the edge demanding new innovative designs allowing user customizations at new price points for hardware, for software stacks that allow developers to write once and deploy in many locations, and for IT administrators to manage 100’s to 1,000s of geographically distributed computing sites. This panel will examine the role that open infrastructure, hardware and software, is expected to play in enabling the innovation, security, customization and cost reduction needed for edge computing.