Linux Foundation's LF Edge pushes out 2.0 version of edge computing terms

The Linux Foundation's LF Edge today released the second version of its Open Glossary of Edge Computing.

The glossary was created last year as a means to come up with a common, vendor-neutral vocabulary for edge computing in order to get vendors, service providers, and systems integrators on the same page.

The glossary, which is an open source project under the LF Edge umbrella, was launched as part of the first annual State of the Edge report last year. The 2.0 version will be included in the State of the Edge 2019 report, which will be released this fall. Open Glossary 2.0 is available in a publicly-accessible GitHub repo.

“The Open Glossary of Edge Computing exemplifies a community-driven process to document and refine the language around edge computing,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, Edge, and IoT, the Linux Foundation, in a statement. “As the diversity of LF Edge increases, we want frameworks in place that make it easy to talk about edge computing in consistent and less-biased ways.

"It’s imperative the community comes together to converge on a shared vocabulary, as it will play a substantial role in how our industry discusses and defines the next-generation internet.”

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Some of the factors that are pushing gear, services and applications to the network edge include initial deployments of 5G, IoT, increasing bandwidth demand, video services and cloud-based architectures for enterprises. 5G and cloud-based gaming in particular seem to be a match made in heaven at the edge since both need low latency.

There are various types of "edges" in the telecommunications industry that are being backed by different industry players, including telcos, cloud providers, managed service providers and cable operators. By coming up with a glossary, LF Edge and the Linux Foundation are seeking to create a shared lexicon within the industry in order to build services and applications.

“Now that we’ve reached the v2.0 milestone, the next big task for the Open Glossary will be to recommend standardizing the lexicon across all of the LF Edge projects,” said Matt Trifiro, CMO of Vapor IO and chair of the Open Glossary of Edge Computing, in a statement. “The LF Edge projects span the continuum from cloud to device. Each project has evolved organically, often with its own vocabulary, and our goal is to both respect each project’s history, but make it practical and possible to talk coherently across projects using terms and phrases that mean the same thing. This will be a long-term community effort.”