F5 : The role of cloud in edge-native applications

It would make zero sense for billing and account management functions to reside on the edge node, let alone the edge endpoint. Similarly, it wouldn't be efficient (or very safe) to give the Plex service access to my local repository of digital content. Rather, that responsibility is left to the local media server running on the edge node.

In many ways, this pattern is no different than those produced by modernization efforts to provide modern interfaces for traditional (legacy, vintage, retro, mature, choose your euphemism for 'before my time') applications. Consider screen scraping text-based systems to provide web-based access at the turn of the century. Or the use of APIs to facilitate mobile banking, which relies on traditional transactional systems. Modernization efforts often produce application patterns that assign responsibility to systems and applications across data center, cloud, and edge boundaries.

These kinds of decisions are being made every day for connected things, sensors, and other edge applications. These decisions emerge as common, edge-native application patterns.

Nearly every one of them includes functions that reside in a cloud / data center.

Unlike the rush to declare data centers obsolete when cloud computing hit the scene, it is unlikely you will hear anyone declaring the same about cloud now that edge is emerging. On the contrary, cloud and data centers will continue to play an integral part of edge-native applications.