On April 8, 2020, State of the Edge became part of The Linux foundation. This extends a long-standing relationship between the two organizations, which began in 2018 when we contributed the Open Glossary of Edge Computing to the foundation and it became a top-level project within the LF Edge umbrella.
Founded in 2017 by industry pioneers Vapor IO, Packet by Equinix, Edge Gravity by Ericsson, Arm, and Rafay Systems, the State of the Edge organization has published three major edge research reports, all offered free-of-charge under a Creative Commons license: the landmark 2018 State of the Edge report, the 2019 Data at the Edge report and, most recently, the 2020 State of the Edge report. The organization’s founding co-chairs, Matthew Trifiro, CMO of Vapor IO, and Jacob Smith, VP Bare Metal Strategy & Marketing of Equinix, will remain as co-chairs of State of the Edge.
Operating under the auspices of The Linux Foundation, State of the Edge oversees three project working groups:
Many believe edge computing will be one of the most transformative technologies of the next decade, and State of the Edge seeks to document it.
An open and collaborative community of organizations and individuals, State of the Edge seeks to cultivate a passion about the future of edge computing. The project seeks to advance edge computing through research, consensus-building, ecosystem development and effective communication. To that end, State of the Edge reports curate contributions from a diverse community of writers and analysts. By including many voices, State of the Edge publications avoid the often incomplete, skewed and overly vendor-driven research typically available.
Democratizing Edge Computing Research
The first State of the Edge report, released in 2018, established a baseline of knowledge from across the edge computing industry. This made it possible for readers to accurately assess what edge computing meant for them, their customers and their unique use cases. This first report covered what were many new and often misunderstood concepts, tying them together in a way that enabled more people than ever before to appreciate and understand the edge.
At the beginning of 2019, we created Data at the Edge using a grant we received from Seagate. And at the end of 2019, we released the State of the Edge 2020 report. The project participants are especially proud of the 2020 report because it offered a comprehensive forecast model for edge computing the predicted capital spend on data centers and related infrastructure. While forecast models on edge computing exist, they are often proprietary and are not built transparently. Moreover, they are typically locked behind expensive paywalls that limit the number of people that can benefit from them.
The State of the Edge is run as an open source project and publishes all of its reports under a Creative Commons license, making it freely available to anyone who is interested. This approach allows the community to benefit from shared knowledge and valuable research on edge computing, without limiting it to those with money to spend.
Available to Read Now
The State of the Edge 2020 report is available to read now for free. We encourage anyone who is interested in edge computing to give it a read and to send any feedback to State of the Edge.