The edge journey is well underway for many organizations as they seek to connect with customers in new ways, improve operational efficiency, and adopt digital technologies to support innovation. The EdgeView 2022 survey from International Data Corporation (IDC) found that three quarters of organizations plan to increase their edge spending over the next two years with an average increase of 37%.
The IDC EdgeView 2022 survey found that three quarters of organizations plan to increase their edge spending over the next two years with an average increase of 37%.
A combination of factors is driving this increased spending at the edge. The performance requirements of expanding workloads and new use cases that leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) demand greater compute capacity at the edge. In addition, the amount of data being stored in edge locations is rapidly expanding, and organizations plan to keep this data longer. As a result, the number of physical servers being deployed at the edge is rising. Most of this investment prioritizes the modernization of existing infrastructure in edge locations as opposed to building out new infrastructure.
The survey also found that enterprises deploying edge are highly focused on building scalable businesses with investments that can contribute quickly to the bottom line. The top objectives for edge deployment are increased revenue, improved products and services, and reduced costs. But edge deployments also present important opportunities to fill a niche market or disrupt an existing market.
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“Enterprises are signaling that they want the benefits of a cloud operating model with the freedom to deploy anywhere,” said Dave McCarthy, research vice president, Cloud and Edge Infrastructure Services at IDC. “This creates tremendous opportunities for technology suppliers that can reduce complexity and maintain consistency in these distributed environments.”
“Edge infrastructure deployments are shifting IT back to a more strategic, influential role within the organization,” said Jennifer Cooke, research director, Edge Strategies. “The IT organization is both driving and supporting critical digital-first efforts within the broader organization.”