Announced at Cisco’s Partner Summit, Unified Edge will likely be part of many third-party packages that can be configured in a variety of ways, Cisco stated.
“The platform is customer definable. For example, if a customer has a workload and they’ve decided they want to use Nutanix, they can go ahead and work with their channel partner to configure the server with the amount of memory and storage that they would want. Then we are going to ship that customized, well-unified edge system,” Foster said. “It’s critical for edge locations and the customers that we’re working with, that they have flexibility and can easily work with someone in the independent software vendor ecosystem around edge and that customers can grow as their needs increase over the next 10 years with the options available in this chassis.”
Flexibility is key as enterprises grow not only AI applications but also other edge applications, experts say.
“A highly distributed IT ecosystem introduces new challenges in building, deploying, and maintaining remote infrastructure. The scale and reach of edge deployments creates a significant burden on IT organizations,” IDC wrote in a white paper on edge computing. “Without rigorous management, data security is at risk. And edge environments often come with unavoidable physical security risks. For these reasons, infrastructure that is designed to streamline and simplify deployment is preferred. Modernized edge platforms automate management, ensuring that configurations remain intact and that systems can remain updated even when no IT staff is physically present.”
“There are a variety of factors driving edge transformation. Most notable are AI workloads, and particularly those that are latency sensitive, such as real-time data processing for fraud detection, machine sensors and video analytics in manufacturing for quality control and predictive maintenance, and in-store retail analytics to create new customer experiences,” IDC wrote. “New AI workloads at the edge require high performance and better resilience, with critical operations and business processes relying on edge infrastructure. Greater efficiency and cost optimization are key benefits and will drive continued deployment of new edge use cases.”
Cisco Unified Edge can be ordered now and will ship in December, Foster said.
