The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced the launch of LF Edge, an umbrella organization to establish an open, interoperable framework for edge computing independent of hardware, silicon, cloud, or operating system. LF Edge is initially comprised of five projects that will support emerging edge applications in the area of non-traditional video and connected things that require lower latency, faster processing and mobility.

LF Edge includes Akraino Edge Stack, EdgeX Foundry, and Open Glossary of Edge Computing, formerly stand-alone projects at The Linux Foundation. The initiative also includes a new project contributed by Samsung Electronics, which will create a hub for real-time data collected through smart home devices, and another project from ZEDEDA, which is contributing a new agnostic standard edge architecture.

"The market opportunity for LF Edge spans industrial, enterprise and consumer use cases in complex environments that cut across multiple edges and domains. We're thrilled with the level of support backing us at launch, with more than 60 global organizations as founding members and new project contributions," said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, The Linux Foundation. "This massive endorsement, combined with existing code and project contributions like Akraino from AT&T and EdgeX Foundry from Dell EMC, means LF Edge is well-positioned to transform edge and IoT application development."

Through the formation of a software stack that brings the best of telecom, cloud, and enterprise (representing location, latency and mobility differentiation), LF Edge will help ensure greater harmonization to accelerate deployment among the rapidly growing number of edge devices slated to exceed 20 billion by 2020. In order for the broader IoT to succeed, the currently fragmented edge market needs to be able to work together to identify and protect against problematic security vulnerabilities and advance a common, constructive vision for the future of the industry.

More about LF Edge projects:  

• Akraino Edge Stack is creating an open source software stack that supports high-availability cloud services optimized for edge computing systems and applications;
• EdgeX Foundry is focused on building a common open framework for IoT edge computing.
• Home Edge Project, seed code contributed by Samsung Electronics, is a new project that concentrates on driving and enabling a robust, reliable, and intelligent home edge computing framework, platform and ecosystem running on a variety of devices in our daily lives.
• Open Glossary of Edge Computing provides a concise collection of terms related to the field of edge computing.
• Project EVE (Edge Virtualization Engine), contributed by ZEDEDA, will create an open and agnostic standard edge architecture that accommodates complex and diverse on- and off-prem hardware, network and application selections.

As the IoT increasingly trades legacy embedded devices for cloud native computing devices with greater compute power, edge and IoT developers need vendor-neutral platforms and a shared vocabulary for deploying and securing their devices. Industries including industrial manufacturing, cities and government, energy, transportation, retail, homes, building automation, automotive, logistics and healthcare all stand to be transformed by edge computing, which by its nature spans many different systems, domains, hardware and software.

Bringing Unity to the Fragmented Edge Computing Realm

Already home to several other thriving umbrella organizations - including Cloud Native Computing Foundation, LF Networking, and LF Deep Learning -The Linux Foundation provides a neutral structure for building an open source community. Under the auspices of The Linux Foundation, LF Edge will drive better, more secure development at the edge, outlining an aligned vision for the diverse and complex edge projects being built today.

LF Edge is already supported by a strong roster of industry-leading founding members: (Premier) Arm, AT&T, Baidu, Dell EMC, Dianomic Inc., Ericsson, HP Inc., HPE, Huawei, IBM, Intel, inwinStack, Juniper Networks, MobiledgeX, Netsia, Nokia Solutions, NTT, OSIsoft, Qualcomm Technologies, Radisys, Red Hat, Samsung Electronics, Seagate Technology, Tencent, WindRiver, Wipro, ZEDEDA; and (General) Advantech Co., Alleantia srl,  Beechwoods Software Inc., Canonical Group Limited, CertusNet, CloudPlugs Inc., Concept Reply, DATA AHEAD AG, Enigmedia, EpiSensor, Foghorn Systems Inc., ForgeRock US Inc., Foundries.io, Hangzhou EMQ Technologies Co. Ltd., IOTech Systems Ltd., IoTium, KMC, Linaro, Mainflux, Mocana, NetFoundry, Packet, Pluribus Networks, RackN, Redis Labs, VaporIO, Vitro Technology Corp., Volterra Inc., Wanxiang Group; and (Associate) Automotive Edge Computing Consortium (AECC), Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT), Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Infrastructure Masons, Inc., and Project Haystack.

More details on LF Edge, including how to join as a member, are available here: www.lfedge.org.

LF Edge Project Support

"End-to-end cohesion requires big companies to come together to foster the space for industrial collaboration and emerging architectures across mobile, residential, SMB and enterprise organizations when dealing with the edge," said Roman Shaposhnik, vice president of Product and Strategy, ZEDEDA. "This initiative provides critical leadership - not just a piece of the edge puzzle - with the ultimate output being working code."

"As devices play more important roles in our everyday lives, the edge computing is one of the key driving forces for a new computing paradigm within the IT industry," said Seunghwan Cho, executive vice president of Samsung Research, the advanced R&D arm of Samsung Electronics' device business. "As Samsung is one of the leading open source contributors at LF Edge, we'll be in the forefront of realizing and accelerating edge computing, which can provide assistance to a wide array of fields, including Home Edge, Industrial, and Mobile Edge Computing (MEC)."

"The Linux Foundation has created the perfect vehicle for collaboration and coordination across the diversity of LF Edge projects," said Matt Trifiro, former chair of the Open Glossary of Edge Computing and chief marketing officer, Vapor IO. "We see the the Open Glossary playing a vital role in fostering a shared understanding that accelerates innovation. We look forward to working with the all of the LF Edge projects to cross-pollinate terminologies and harmonize the lexicon."

"We are thrilled by the progress of Akraino Edge Stack so far and excited to see the Linux Foundation deepen its commitment into edge computing," said Oliver Spatscheck, former Akraino Board chair and assistant vice president at AT&T Labs. "The launch of LF Edge will accelerate edge innovation and drive real business value by bringing a diverse set of edge players under one roof."

"LF Edge will create a comprehensive and coordinated set of foundational open source tools to enable developers to accelerate time to value in creating IoT and Edge computing solutions," said Jason Shepherd, former governing board chair of EdgeX Foundry, and IoT and Edge Computing chief technology officer at Dell Technologies. "We look forward to continuing to foster IoT interoperability within the EdgeX community in addition to collaborating across LF Edge projects to develop de facto-standard APIs for intelligent interactions between the application and infrastructure planes within the broader edge ecosystem."