Red Hat extends its focus to the network edge SHARE Open-source software giant Red Hat Inc. is positioning its flagship operating system as the basis for multiple types of computing workloads at the edge of the network. The company said today the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 is meant to serve as the foundation of its “Red Hat Edge initiative,” which aims to deliver the capabilities of its open hybrid cloud portfolio of software and services to applications operating at the edge. Edge computing refers to the idea of bringing computation and data storage closer to devices that operate at the “edge” of the network. These could be, for instance, sensors on factory floors, cameras in retail stores and vehicles that are part of a much wider fleet. Traditionally, these devices and sensors would send the data they generate back to a cloud-based data center to be processed, which is fine if just one device is involved, but when you have multiple devices all transmitting information at the same time, latency becomes a big issue, as does the cost of the bandwidth being used.