Blog

Molly Wojcik | February 26, 2019 | Edge

The rise of edge computing has brought about a shift in system architecture requirements and considerations. As applications demand lower latency and reduced bandwidth, deployment method decisions are increasingly critical. This article examines the differences between using virtual machines (VMs) vs. containers vs. serverless functions in the context of edge computing, and looks at how to decide which method is best for your workload.

Molly Wojcik | January 22, 2019 | Edge

Edge computing sets up a new paradigm for running software applications outside the cloud. A report from Gartner in October 2017 revealed that around 10% of enterprise-generated data already came from outside traditional data centers or cloud, and predicted this figure to rise to 75% by 2022.

Molly Wojcik | January 14, 2019 | Edge

A couple months back, we published an article talking about game developers looking to the edge and the transformative value it can offer, particularly in relation to faster and more reliable gathering and processing of in-game data that the edge supports. This article focuses more on the benefits of edge compute for gamers themselves and draws out a host of examples that gamers (and game creators) can relate to.

Matt Johnson | January 10, 2019 | Edge, Performance

There are a number of lightweight code at the edge solutions emerging to complement existing lightweight solutions such as AWS Lambda. Several traditional CDN players have implemented a cut down Javascript layer called V8 (both Cloudflare and Stackpath have taken this route).

Molly Wojcik | December 26, 2018 | Edge

As the hype around edge computing continues to mount, engineering teams across the globe are asking themselves how they can achieve lower latency and greater efficiency by migrating more processing to the edge. From retail environments and fast food chains, to wind energy and autonomous vehicles, the use cases for edge computing are seemingly endless. For developers building and operating in these increasingly distributed systems, there are some fundamental workload considerations to keep in mind at the edge.

Molly Wojcik | December 17, 2018 | Edge

One of the most important topics in relation to edge computing is scheduling. In the future, it is perfectly feasible that every 5G base station will have a data center at its base. While these edge data centers will enable a massive amount of compute, there won’t be enough to run every application in the world at every tower at once. We need a system that is capable of optimizing workload scheduling to run in the right place at the right time. This is a hugely challenging problem that needs our attention.

Molly Wojcik | December 14, 2018 | Edge

Edge computing may soon make it possible to create a completely new generation of consumer and industrial applications. Those applications will benefit from lower latency and improved performance because of the proximity of processing near the end device. It is predicted that edge computing use cases will demand round-trip processing times of better than 10ms; that’s compared to around 40ms by traditional CDNs.

Molly Wojcik | December 08, 2018 | Edge

Section Co-Founder and CTO Daniel Bartholomew was recently interviewed on the L8ist Sh9y podcast. Hosts Stephen Spector and Rob Hirschfeld chatted with Daniel about the critical role that the developer experience plays in realizing the potential of edge computing.

Molly Wojcik | November 29, 2018 | Case Studies, Edge, Performance

Hotjar partners with companies of all sizes (from startups to Fortune 500 companies), providing a UX testing tool that delivers valuable insights to website and application owners to help them better understand visitor behavior and improve user experience. By installing a simple Javascript tag, site administrators gain access to a variety of web analytics, including heat maps, screen recordings and funnel analysis of shopping cart activity.

Molly Wojcik | November 12, 2018 | Edge

At Section, we’re primarily focused on providing value for developers on the programming side of edge compute, but the scalability of our platform is heavily dependent on the edge infrastructure that we utilize. In order to meet the demand for increasingly vast volumes of requests that pass through our platform, we’re constantly looking for ways to optimize our infrastructure to continue to support highly performant systems.

Molly Wojcik | November 07, 2018 | Edge

As we look ahead to the future of edge computing, there are many use cases that are driving demand. However, one area that we are especially interested in is online gaming, where we believe that our platform has the opportunity to provide transformative value for game developers.

Molly Wojcik | October 30, 2018 | Edge

Our team was in attendance at the recent Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2018. The agenda was packed with insights across 16 different areas of tech - from Application Modernization to Work, People & Culture. One of the highlights of the annual event is hearing what the Gartner experts have identified as the Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for the coming year. This influential list highlights the key “changing or not yet widely recognized trends that will impact and transform industries through 2023”. Not surprisingly, this year’s list includes the Edge.

Molly Wojcik | October 23, 2018 | Agile, Edge

The ‘edge’ is dominating many conversations across the technology landscape today. 75% of enterprise-generated data will be created and processed outside of centralized cloud data centers and relocated to the edge by 2022, according to Gartner. However, beyond its potential for disrupting traditional cloud infrastructure, what does edge computing tactically mean for developers who are responsible for the day-in-day-out management of increasingly distributed web application architecture?

Molly Wojcik | October 22, 2018 | Agile, Edge

To keep pace with technology, engineers must be able to conduct quick deployments in a safe, reliable and repeatable way. DevOps and continuous delivery (CD) help to support a more responsive and flexible, quicker time-to-market across the software delivery cycle; an increasingly important asset in a market in which IT departments are squeezed to achieve a quicker pace of innovation.

Molly Wojcik | October 19, 2018 | Edge

The growth of edge computing is not only creating opportunities for processing to take place closer to where data originates, but as more devices connect to the cloud via edge compute, it is also paving the way for further development of 5G, IoT and AI, thereby opening up virtually boundless possibilities in the future world of technology.

Molly Wojcik | October 15, 2018 | Edge, Security

Edge computing promises to improve efficiency when it comes to how data is gathered, processed and analyzed, but it also creates the potential for a whole new threat landscape. IoT devices are notorious for their security loopholes and as users rush to get ahead of the curve and implement compute at the edge, it is quickly becoming a new “front line” in the cybersecurity battle. At the same time, edge compute architecture offers new opportunities to implement more sophisticated security layers to protect against threats. As organizations try to stay ahead of the evolving technology paradigm, it is essential to build an appropriate edge cybersecurity strategy in response.

Molly Wojcik | October 08, 2018 | Edge

The rise in the Internet of Things (IoT) is generally considered to be the leading driver for edge compute. By 2020, Gartner predicts there will be 20.4 billion ‘connected things’ in use around the world, up from 8.4 billion in 2017. There are many reasons why IoT is a natural fit for edge compute, ranging from the need for many IoT devices to be located in rural and remote areas that reside far away from traditional cloud data centers, to the challenges of meeting security and compliance requirements (especially in the GDPR era) when data is not processed on a local basis.

Molly Wojcik | October 01, 2018 | CDNs 101, Edge

The CDN market is in the midst of a revolution, and containers are at the forefront of the sea change. Over the last several years, the containerization of services has become an increasingly popular mode of building and managing applications, which shows no sign of abating. The flexibility that containerization offers through breaking applications into different components offers many benefits to software development. Container management services like Docker and Kubernetes have seen a great deal of momentum in their usage by development and IT ops teams. Datadog’s latest Docker Adoption Report showed that adoption rates of Docker, for instance, have increased by 20% year over year.

Molly Wojcik | September 26, 2018 | Edge

In contrast to traditional cloud architectures, fog computing and edge computing are network and system architectures that gather, analyze and process data from assets deployed at the very edge of the network. Fog compute and edge compute share similar goals, including the reduction of network latency, minimizing the amount of data sent to the cloud for processing and optimizing system response time, particularly in remote mission-critical applications. Indeed some consider the two architectures to be synonymous, but there are fundamental differences between the two.

Stewart McGrath | September 10, 2018 | CDNs 101, Edge

CDNs - An Early Evolution of Edge Compute The financial and business logic of moving compute to the edge is a powerful incentive. Gartner predicts that by 2022, 50% of computing will be happening at the edge. Currently, around 10% of enterprise-data is created and processed outside a traditional data center or centralized cloud. Santhosh Rao, principal research analyst at Gartner, noted, “Organizations that have embarked on a digital business journey have realized that a more decentralized approach is required to address digital business infrastructure requirements.”

Stewart McGrath | July 16, 2018 | Performance, Security, Edge

Web applications are increasingly complex by nature and rapidly evolving in a landscape of increased consumer demand for higher quality experience, faster interaction and a low tolerance for security breaches of personal data. While cloud computing and the emergence of the large cloud hosts has caused a centralization of compute resource, the next wave of compute innovation is happening at “the edge”.