As modern technological concepts such as cloud networking and hybrid cloud computing approach maturity, other related fields such as edge computing are making a march to prominence.

Edge allows enterprises to optimize their internet devices, networking frameworks and web applications by taking the actual computing efforts closer to the data origination source. Subsequently, the occurrence of large bandwidth usage and high latency are mitigated thanks to a minimization in the need for communication over long distances.

“With industry spending billions on IoT and edge, we just feel that that’s going to be the next evolution,” said John Pisano (pictured left), principal of digital cloud solutions at Booz Allen Hamilton. “I think 5G will be certainly an accelerator to edge because of the resilience, the lower latency and so forth. We believe that time’s a weapon, so reducing any latency in that kind of observe, orient, decide, act OODA loop is value to the warfighter.”

Pisano and Ki Lee (pictured right), vice president of digital business at Booz Allen, spoke with John Furrier, host of SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming video studio theCUBE. They spoke about the new edge wave, recent developments in the field, and how its underlying benefits can touch a variety of sectors across industries. The trio also touched on challenges facing the edge movement: from maintenance challenges to infrastructural handicaps — one of which includes software supply chain management. (* Disclosure below.)

Edge and its defense applications

It’s no news that the U.S. armed forces and other defense departments rely heavily on cutting-edge technologies to function. They are usually also the first to implement these technologies at scale — with the early walkie-talkie radios, GPS and virtual reality as prime examples.

“[The U.S. Air Force] was ahead of the curve in kind of commoditizing some of these DevSecOps principles in partnership with the DoD CIO and that shift-left concept. They’ve got a certified and accredited platform that provides that DevSecOps. They have an entire repository in the Iron Bank that allows for hardened containers and reciprocity,” Lee said while shedding light on edge’s current, defense-oriented use cases.

Collaborations between the U.S. government and several heavyweights in the edge space will be key innovation drivers for the coming years, he added.

The enterprise side of things

5G, the latest standard in wireless mobile computing, has seen adoption soar over the past few years. Both Pisano and Lee shared confidence in its ability to revolutionize edge across a wide spectrum of organizational sizes.

“I think the merge of the unconstrained or the possible by these small companies that are just driving innovations supported by the maturity and the heft of these large companies who are building out these hardened capabilities, they’re going to converge at some point. And that’s where I think we’re going to get further innovation,” Lee stated.

As enterprises migrate from old cloud technologies to new ones whilst undergoing intensive edge architecture planning, developers are going to be called upon more than ever before.

“I would, number one, amplify the fact of recognizing that you’re going to have a hybrid environment of legacy and modern capabilities. And in addition to thinking about open architectures and whatnot, think about your culture, the people, your processes, your techniques … and your governance,” Pisano concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s CUBE Conversations. (* Disclosure: Rancher Labs Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Rancher Labs nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE