{"id":269428,"date":"2021-01-27T11:25:38","date_gmt":"2021-01-27T16:25:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.webscale.com\/?p=269290"},"modified":"2023-12-29T08:05:52","modified_gmt":"2023-12-29T13:05:52","slug":"is-edge-as-a-service-eaas-the-next-big-thing-in-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.webscale.com\/blog\/is-edge-as-a-service-eaas-the-next-big-thing-in-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Edge as a Service (EaaS) the Next Big Thing in Tech?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Software as a Service (SaaS) was the largest market segment in the cloud in 2020 and\u00a0Gartner forecasts<\/a>\u00a0it to grow to $117.7 billion by the end of this year. Not far behind comes Platform as a Service (PaaS), a development and deployment environment in the cloud, and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), instant computing infrastructure, provisioned and managed over the cloud.<\/p>\n

So, with compute architectures becoming increasingly more distributed, is Edge as a Service (EaaS) poised to be the next big thing in tech?<\/p>\n

What is Edge as a Service (EaaS)?<\/h3>\n

A large portion of applications, particularly enterprise apps, leverage a heterogeneous network of public clouds, private clouds, on-premise data centers, and edge.\u00a0A shift toward this kind of hybrid IT infrastructure<\/a>\u00a0has been\u00a0accelerated due to the pandemic<\/a>\u00a0and increased demand for high-speed networks and by extension, edge computing.<\/p>\n

Helping meet this demand is Edge as a Service (EaaS). As defined by Edge IR, EaaS providers are \u201ccompanies that offer a platform realizing distributed cloud architectures and integrating the edge of the network in the computing ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simplifying and Accelerating the Path to the Edge<\/h3>\n

Cloud providers have offered numerous unique benefits to developers in the cloud hosting space, from the ability to easily scale to being able to quickly provision new resources, whether virtual machines or databases. Another benefit of the cloud is its geographic reach. Further, the cloud doesn\u2019t offer just one service model, but multiple options for how to set up your environment to meet your specific set of needs, such as via IaaS or PaaS.<\/p>\n

Now is the time to expand these same principles to edge computing. The trends towards microservices and distributed computing architectures are driving this need. When you go from a deployment model of selecting a single cloud endpoint (e.g. \u2018US East\u2019) to running an application across hundreds, or even thousands, of endpoints across the globe, the complexities grow exponentially. EaaS offers organizations confronting a lack of skill sets within their internal IT teams, the ability to benefit from the expertise and resources of an EaaS provider who can provide turnkey solutions for customizing and managing these complex systems. Essentially, Edge as a Service offers an easy \u2018Buy\u2019 option for those facing the\u00a0Build vs. Buy<\/a>\u00a0dilemma.<\/p>\n

Consider, for example, an organization like Chick-fil-A. Most people know them for their menu, not their technology. However,\u00a0Chick-fil-A is revered among many tech enthusiasts<\/a>\u00a0as one of the first to successfully adopt an edge networking Kubernetes container orchestration deployment that is managed with a GitOps approach.<\/p>\n

Chick-fil-A made the decision to invest in an expert IT team to build and manage these systems at a time when the available vendor solutions were silo\u2019d and disconnected, making it difficult to integrate. However, as Edge as a Service has matured to apply the same open source principles that led Chick-fil-A to develop a homegrown system, organizations today have the advantage of being able to leverage the same solutions without the burdens of building and managing these systems. This, in turn, gives them the ability to innovate while not diverting focus from their core business.<\/p>\n

In the same way that SaaS revolutionized software delivery and managed to become the default software-delivery model over the course of just one decade, we anticipate EaaS to be the next big tech disruption.<\/p>\n

How EaaS benefits SaaS and PaaS providers<\/h3>\n

There are many ways in which Edge as a Service can add value to existing \u201cas-a-Service\u201d solutions.<\/p>\n

Edge as a Service offers SaaS providers new deployment options<\/h4>\n

Software as a Service (SaaS) is defined as a centrally-hosted application offering specific services such as email (Gmail) or storage (Dropbox) via a subscription-based software licensing model.<\/p>\n

Edge as a Service enables SaaS providers to deliver faster, more secure experiences for their customers by leveraging the innovative benefits of edge computing. With EaaS, SaaS providers gain instant access to an edge deployment model for their solutions without having to build and manage their own edge network.<\/p>\n

Section recently partnered with Wallam to power its Wallarm Cloud WAF<\/a>, which provides protection across applications, APIs and serverless workloads. Working with Section\u2019s Edge as a Service, Wallarm Filter Nodes are distributed around the world providing protection at the edge without any agent installation necessary on the client\u2019s side.<\/p>\n

\u201cSection gave us a fast path to market to introduce a cloud-native offering for our WAF solution.\u201d– Wallarm<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Edge as a Service enables PaaS & hosting providers to quickly and easily build and integrate edge services<\/h4>\n

Platform as a Service (PaaS) offers a digital framework for developers to customize as they build, test and deliver their own applications. The PaaS or other hosting provider manages the infrastructure and operating systems, so that the developer can concentrate on managing the applications and building software.<\/p>\n

Edge as a Service enables PaaS in unique ways by:<\/p>\n