Linux Foundation’s EdgeX Foundry dedicated to edge IoT interoperability
As the diverse internet of things (IoT) continues to drive digitalization efforts for a variety of consumer, enterprise and industrial services, ecosystem stakeholders are working to distribute compute and storage functionality from centralized data centers out to the edge of the network. But, as with many aspects of the IoT, market fragmentation looms as potential disruptor to scalability and interoperability of connected devices and appliances that produce and process data. To keep up with IoT interoperability requirements, , the Linux Foundation is relying on its open-source software approach through the EdgeX Foundry.
Dedicated to IoT interoperability at the network edge, EdgeX Foundry turned one last month and celebrated during the Hannover Messe event in Germany. Since it was kicked-off with the donation of more than 100,000 lines of code donated to the group by Dell Technologies, EdgeX Foundry has steadily gained members ranging from major OEMs like Samsung and Dell to more niche IoT interests.
EdgeX Foundry Chairman Jason Shepherd, also CTO for IoT at Dell, described the open-source initiative as a “trailblazer. Member companies both small and large are active in the EdgeX technical community in various ways and are leveraging EdgeX in their product and solutions roadmaps. In fact, we’ll see a few prototypes later this year.”
Samsung VP and Head of the Entperprise IoT Business Team Gyeongil Chae called out the importance of “monitoring and operation of the edge as well as optimization and analytics through intelligent edge platforms.” He characterized the goal of Samsung’s participation in EdgeX as “developing [a] standardized framework for IoT edge computing that ensures interoperability and vendor neutrality.”
Chipmaker Cavium made good on Shepherd’s assertion that devices would soon hit the market. During the ongoing Computex exhibition in Taipei, Taiwan, the company announced the immediate availability of EdgeX-compatible products, including the OCTEON TX system on a chip.
Cavium VP and GM of the Network and Communication Group Raj Singh highlighted the role of 5G in enabling latency-sensitive applications at the edge. “Edge computing extends the concepts of distributed computing to the very edge of the network providing services and control closely aligned to real time needs for future IoT and 5G networks. As well as providing live traffic analysis. This alleviates the load on the core network and provides significantly better response and throughput for the entire network.”
