3. Edge computing management comes to the forefront

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“As edge computing becomes as ubiquitous as the cloud, there will be greater demand for scalability and centralized management,” Wright says. IT leaders deploying applications at scale will need to invest in tools that enable them to scale their capabilities, enabling them to design their edge solutions at the processor level and deploy them as consistently and easily as any other commodity compute or storage platform, he says.

The traditional approach of monitoring a data center or cloud at the edge won’t work, Williams notes. “Because of the diverse nature of edge technologies, organizations must move from monitoring the health of the devices or applications they run to monitoring the digital experience of their users,” he says. “This user-centric approach to monitoring takes into account all the components that can impact the customer experience while avoiding the ‘blind spots’ that often lie between the infrastructure and the user.”

As Stu Miniman, director of market insights paraguay mobile database Red Hat's cloud platform team, recently noted, if anyone needed any more evidence that hybrid or multi-cloud is a reality, it's the rise of the Edge: data and applications live in many different places.

“The conversation around edge is very dependent on whether you’re talking to a telco, a public cloud provider, or a typical enterprise,” adds Miniman. “When it comes to Kubernetes and the cloud native ecosystem, there are a lot of technology options competing for customers’ minds and wallets. While the conversation with telcos is already about extending their NFV solutions, there are a lot of options for enterprises. Edge is becoming part of hybrid environments that are generally distributed, and customers need to work closely with their vendors to ensure that edge doesn’t become an island of technology with a specialized skill set.”

4. IT and operational technologies are beginning to converge