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April 2020

LF Edge Expands Ecosystem with Open Horizon, adds Seven New Members and Reaches Critical Deployment Milestones

By Akraino Edge Stack, Announcement, Baetyl, EdgeX Foundry, Fledge, Home Edge, LF Edge, Open Horizon, Project EVE, State of the Edge

  • Open Horizon, an application and metadata delivery platform, is now part of LF Edge as a Stage 1 (At-Large) Project.
  • New members bring R&D expertise in Telco, Enterprise and Cloud Edge Infrastructure.
  • EdgeX Foundry hits 4.3 million downloads and Akraino R2 delivers 14 validated deployment-ready blueprints.
  • Fledge shares a race car use case optimizing car and driver operations using Google Cloud, Machine Learning and state-of-the-art digital twins and simulators.

SAN FRANCISCO – April 30, 2020 –  LF Edge, an umbrella organization under The Linux Foundation that aims to establish an open, interoperable framework for edge computing independent of hardware, silicon, cloud, or operating system, today announced continued project momentum with the addition a new project and several technical milestones for EdgeX Foundry, Akraino Edge Stack and Fledge. Additionally, the project welcomes seven new members including CloudBrink, Federated Wireless, Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), Kaloom, Ori Industries, Tensor Networks and VoerEir to its ecosystem.

Open Horizon, an existing project contributed by IBM, is a platform for managing the service software lifecycle of containerized workloads and related machine learning assets. It enables autonomous management of applications deployed to distributed webscale fleets of edge computing nodes and devices without requiring on-premise administrators.

Edge computing brings computation and data storage closer to where data is created by people, places, and things. Open Horizon simplifies the job of getting the right applications and machine learning onto the right compute devices, and keeps those applications running and updated. It also enables the autonomous management of more than 10,000 edge devices simultaneously – that’s 20 times as many endpoints as in traditional solutions.

“We are thrilled to welcome Open Horizon and new members to the LF Edge ecosystem,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, Edge & IoT, the Linux Foundation. “These additions complement our deployment ready LF Edge open source projects and our growing global ecosystem.”

“LF Edge is bringing together some of the most significant open source efforts in the industry, said Todd Moore, IBM VP Open Technology, “We are excited to contribute the Open Horizon project as this will expand the work with the other projects and companies to create shared approaches, open standards, and common interfaces and APIs.”

Open Horizon joins LF Edge’s other projects including: Akraino Edge Stack, Baetyl,  EdgeX Foundry, Fledge, Home Edge, Project EVE and State of the Edge. These projects support emerging edge applications across areas such as non-traditional video and connected things that require lower latency, and  faster processing and mobility. By forming a software stack that brings the best of cloud, enterprise and telecom, LF Edge helps to unify a fragmented edge market around a common, open vision for the future of the industry.

Since its launch last year, LF Edge projects have met significant milestones including:

  • EdgeX Foundry has hit 4.3 million docker downloads.
  • Akraino Edge Stack (Release 2) has 14 specific Blueprints that have all tested and validated on hardware labs and can be deployed immediately in various industries including Connected Vehicle, AR/VR, Integrated Cloud Native NFV, Network Cloud and Tungsten Fabric and SDN-Enabled Broadband Access.
  • Fledge shares a race car use case optimizing car and driver operations using Google Cloud, Machine Learning and state-of-the-art digital twins and simulators.
  • State of the Edge merged under LF Edge earlier this month and will continue to pave the path as the industry’s first open research program on edge computing. Under the umbrella, State of the Edge will continue its assets including State of the Edge Reports, Open Glossary of Edge Computing and the Edge Computing Landscape.

Support from the Expanding LF Edge Ecosystem

Federated Wireless:

“LF Edge has become a critical point of collaboration for network and enterprise edge innovators in this new cloud-driven IT landscape,” said Kurt Schaubach, CTO, Federated Wireless. “We joined the LF Edge to apply our connectivity and spectrum expertise to helping define the State of the Edge, and are energized by the opportunity to contribute to the establishment of next generation edge compute for the myriad of low latency applications that will soon be part of private 5G networks.”

Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI):

“ITRI is one of the world’s leading technology R&D institutions aiming to innovate a better future for society. Founded in 1973, ITRI has played a vital role in transforming Taiwan’s industries from labor-intensive into innovation-driven. We focus on the fields of Smart Living, Quality Health, and Sustainable Environment. Over the years, we also added a focus on 5G, AI, and Edge Computing related research and development. We joined LF Edge to leverage its leadership in these areas and to collaborate with the more than 75 member companies on projects like Akraino Edge Stack.”

Kaloom:

“Kaloom is pleased to join LF Edge to collaborate with the community on developing open, cloud-native networking, management and orchestration for edge deployments” said Suresh Krishnan, chief technology officer, Kaloom.  “We are working on an unified edge solution in order to optimize the use of resources while meeting the exacting performance, space and energy efficiency needs that are posed by edge deployments. We look forward to contributing our expertise in this space and to collaborating with the other members in LF Edge in accelerating the adoption of open source software, hardware and standards that speed up innovation and reduce TCO.”

Ori Industries:

“At Ori, we are fundamentally changing how software interacts with the distributed hardware on mobile operator networks.” said Mahdi Yahya, Founder and CEO, Ori Industries. “We also know that developers can’t provision, deploy and run applications seamlessly on telco infrastructure. We’re looking forward to working closely with the LF Edge community and the wider open-source ecosystem this year, as we turn our attention to developers and opening up access to the distributed, telco edge.”

Tensor Networks:

“Tensor Networks believes in and supports open source. Having an arena free from the risks of IP Infringement to collaborate and develop value which can be accessible to more people and organizations is essential to our efforts. Tensor runs its organization, and develops products on top of Linux.  The visions of LF Edge, where networks and latency are part of open software based service composition and delivery, align with our vision of open, fast, smart, secure, connected, and customer driven opportunities across all industry boundaries.” – Bill Walker, Chief Technology Officer.

VoerEir:

“In our extensive work with industry leaders for NFVI/VIM test and benchmarking,  a need to standardize infrastructure KPIs in Edge computing has gradually become more important,” said Arif  Khan, Co-Founder of VoerEir AB. “This need has made it essential for us to join LF Edge and to initiate the new Feature Project “Kontour” under the Akraino umbrella. We are excited to collaborate with various industry leaders to define, standardize  and measure Edge KPIs.”

About The Linux Foundation

Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation is supported by more than 1,000 members and is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation’s projects are critical to the world’s infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, and more.  The Linux Foundation’s methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org.

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

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Building an End-to-End NFV & Applications Stack Powered by Kubernetes and ONAP

By Akraino Edge Stack, Blog

Written by Sagar Nangare, an Akraino community member and technology blogger who writes about data center technologies that are driving digital transformation. He is also an Assistant Manager of Marketing at Calsoft.

Introduction

In this article, we’ll look at how open source projects like Kubernetes, ONAP and many others can be stacked to build a Network Function Virtualization (NFV) framework that is identified as an Akraino Integrated Cloud Network (ICN) blueprint.  We’ll outline the step-by-step inclusion of open source projects for various purposes (security, monitoring, orchestration, etc.). Readers will leave with an understanding of the role each open source project will play in the stack.

Glossary

Here are some key terms that I use throughout this article:

NFV: Network Function Virtualization

ONAP: Open Network Automation Framework

CNF: cloud-native network functions

VNF: Virtual Network Functions

Akraino ICN Blueprint: Akraino Integrated Cloud Network or Akraino Edge Stack is a Linux Foundations project for edge computing infrastructure. It is one of the internal projects or blueprints dedicated to the cloud native NFV stack.

CNI: container-native interface

What is NFV (Network Function Virtualization)?

NFV is a concept of transforming hardware-based network functions into software-based applications. It simply decouples network functions from proprietary hardware without impacting performance.

Why do we need NFV?

  • Management and orchestration of thousands of network resources from central location
  • Enable network programmability
  • Allow dynamic scaling of network resources
  • High level automation in the network
  • Monitoring of resources and network connectivity
  • Ability to integrate new services
  • Optimization of network performance

The main reasons for enterprises and service to adopt NFV include: a vast scale of network resources containing different types of network equipment from different vendors, reducing the CAPEX and OPEX for network infrastructure, delivering services in an agile manner and enabling scalability and elasticity of network infrastructure to support rapid technology innovation.

Open Source for NFV

Kubernetes and ONAP are the key open source projects for this NFV stack. Using Kubernetes at the edge is something that leading networking solution companies are evaluating to provide dynamic capabilities managed from a central cloud. If you aren’t familiar with ONAP, it is a platform for real-time, policy-driven orchestration and automation of physical and virtual network functions.

We’ve already seen how Kubernetes is used in NFV as a backbone for cloud-native evolvement. This push for Kubernetes to dive into the NFV stack opens up possibilities for other open-source projects to make up the NFV backbone of enterprise and telecom networks. And further, Kubernetes will enable more automation and dynamic orchestration of application and infrastructure resources across the NFV-powered network.

Additionally, since various edges or hubs are involved in the typical 5G and enterprise network backed by NFV architecture, open-source projects like ONAP and Akraino blueprints are coming up with specific modules for critical orchestration and monitoring tasks.

Now that we’ve acknowledged the major role of Kubernetes and ONAP, let’s focus on the exact needs for a complete end-to-end NFV stack that will innovate a software-driven network. Let’s also look at how we can address those needs by combining different open source projects to power a 5G network and enterprise WAN.

Why Do We Need an End-to-End NFV Stack?

Currently, the IT infrastructure of enterprises and communication service providers is transitioning from centrally managed to geographically distributed. 5G presents the prominent use case for edge nodes or hubs as the initial level data center to communicate with IoT devices and host application services. And enterprises are deploying SD-WAN with edge-like capabilities.

In such architectures, workloads types like microservices, virtual network functions (VNFs) and cloud-native network functions (CNFs) are distributed. All those workload types are orchestrated by different solutions like Kubernetes and commercial solutions provided by VMware, Red Hat and Rancher.

In Figure 1, we can see that it’s difficult to manage all the workloads with different orchestrators, for several reasons. Security policy enforcement and monitoring of distributed nodes differs from centralized ones. You’ll need to manage all clouds and applications deployed on them and get insights about the performance of resources deployed on different edge sites. Additionally, this transition will cost the enterprises and telecom network providers.

Last year at ONS Europe (Open Networking Summit), Srinivasa Adeppalli (Intel) and Ravi Chunduru (Verizon) discussed using Kubernetes with ONAP4K8S, a sub-project in ONAP. This stack would manage all the applications and network functions spread across multiple Kubernetes clusters hosted on different edge nodes or data center infrastructures. They showed how a single pane of glass can orchestrate different edge sites, multiple clouds and network traffic.

Let’s See How it Works

In the presentation, Srinivas and Ravi showed an SD-WAN enterprise edge with microservices deployed in clusters and VNFs and CNFs present in an NFV stack. A request for data access generates the traffic that steers from pods to the internet through different VNFs, CNFs and external routers. Some of the microservices can be user-facing, with low latency needs. In this case, you need a multi-traffic orchestrator that controls the traffic flow and prioritizes the user-facing applications to deliver optimal performance.

Figure 3 shows the stack with the traffic orchestrator. In this scenario, Istio service mesh framework couples the microservices deployed at different edge sites. IPAM Manager ensures that each site is assigned a unique IP subnet and avoids overlapping addresses to Microservices/functions.

As we have seen, microservices, along with VNFs and CNFs, span multiple edge sites or clouds. So, we need a multi-zone manager (Figure 4).

Edge sites may face targeted attacks by external threats that can compromise network communication channels, microservices-based apps, software, and SSD/HDD. In Figure 5, we’ll use a new orchestrator called Multi-security orchestrator that uses CA Service, key distribution and attestation. You can integrate Istio, Vault project and Keycloak project with the Multi-security orchestrator to protect sensitive data as well as manage identity and access. In fact, you can run Istio from the central multi-cluster security orchestrator.

Further, a Multi-Cluster Security Orchestrator lets you monitor all the applications, VNFs and CNFs to check the health status and performance of multi-cluster app visibility and monitoring modules. Figure 6 shows how you can integrate PrometheusJaeger and Fluentd  on each edge site for data monitoring and collect the data logs for analysis at a central location.

Now we have a complete NFV stack, called an Akraino ICN (Integrated Cloud Network) blueprint.

The major frameworks used in the end-to-end NFV stack include ONAP4K8sOVN4K8sNFV, Kubernetes and Akraino SD-EWAN.

You can use ONAP4K8s as a Multi-Cloud/Cluster orchestrator to perform the following tasks:

  • Single-click applications deployment
  • Auto-configuration of service meshes
  • Auto-configuration of SD-WAN to facilitate connectivity among micro-services in multiple clusters
  • Parent CA and Child CA cert/private key enrollment for each edge/zone

You can use Kubernetes to orchestrate microservices-based applications and NFV-specific components like Multus, OVN4K8SNFV and SRIOVNIC as well as application components including Istio and Prometheus. OVN4K8sNFV works as a CNI (container-native interface) that supports multiple types of workloads, such as apps, CNFs, VNFs, etc.

Finally, Akraino SD-EWAN provides overlay connectivity among the Kubernetes clusters.

Conclusion

In this article, I’ve highlighted several open source projects that can be useful at various NFV tasks. Most of these projects are mature and widely integrated into different domains on a different scale. Each of the open source project addresses various features in NFV stack. You need to determine key capabilities from open source projects for each NFV features. You can get more information about implementation details and ongoing development from Akraino ICN and learn more about the NFV stack.

For more information about Akraino Blueprints, click here: https://wiki.akraino.org/. Or, join the conversation on the LF Edge Slack Channel. #akraino-blueprints #akraino-help #akraino-tsc

EdgeX Foundry China Project Q1 Recap

By Blog, EdgeX Foundry

Written by Gavin Lu, LF Edge member, EdgeX Foundry China Project Lead and R&D Director in the VMware Office of the CTO

The EdgeX Foundry China Project launched in December 2019 with an active community in China that leveraged as many resources provided by LF Edge and EdgeX Foundry global community at possible. We’re happy to report that the first quarter has been a success.

All of our content is curated on the China Project wiki site.  Three monthly meetings were conducted on Jan 10, Feb 14 and Mar 6, where core contributors from VMware, Intel, Thundersoft, CertusNet, EMQ, IoTech and other active companies discuss the project, activities and outreach.

Webinars of technical talks

One of our focuses is to raise awareness for EdgeX Foundry in China and encourage developers to get more familiar with the EdgeX framework, unblock obstacles and boost their interest to contribute to the innovation of the community. We planned a hackathon and hosted a tight series of weekly webinars to introduce EdgeX Foundry components and code level analysis. We hosted six sessions led by VMware, Thundersoft,  IoTech and Intel with more than 500 developers attending these sessions.

Direct code contributions

The first result of our Virtual Sandbox came out in Q1. EMQ published an OSS project Kuiper for rule engine in edge & IoT area in last winter, and they had a strong interest to contribute to EdgeX Foundry community. China Project built the connection of EMQ with the proper technical leaders in EdgeX Foundry global community, and hosted the initial round of technical discussion meetings. Right now it’s agreed to include Kuiper container in EdgeX Docker Compose file, targeting to have that integration for Geneva release in Apr 2020. EMQ has biweekly meetings setup with EdgeX App WG to ensure that happen. This is the second major contribution from China to EdgeX community after UI by VMware, which we recently also added more resources to upgrade in the Geneva release next month.

We expect, encourage and support more direct substantial contributions coming later.

Evangelism

This quarter, we had Chinese Spring Festival break annually, and the recent coronavirus outburst also made a sudden and strong impact. While mostly working from home for better safety, members of China Project are still trying to make some progress to promote EdgeX Foundry. For examples,

  • Intel, Dell and VMware are leading EdgeX Foundry Hackathon plan in China, adapting the schedule accordingly.
  • Thundersoft is planning to co-organize an AI & IoT Innovation Contest with other hosts, and hold a webinar on EdgeX for developers.
  • Wayclouds is collaborating with Opple on smart lighting using EdgeX platform, targeting in mid of Apr.

As a common seen approach, we setup an official WeChat ID ”EdgeXFoundryCN” (“EdgeXFoundry社区” in Chinese), which will help us promote EdgeX Foundry as an independent communication channel. After just 10 days and three posts, the followers of this ID increased to around 150. We will leverage this WeChat ID as well as all existing EdgeX Foundry WeChat groups and Linux Foundation WeChat group, and other WeChat IDs operated by community members.

We understand that this is an extraordinary time, and we are adjusting to the rapidly evolving situation. In the meanwhile, we also try best to remain focused on supporting the community and delivering our commitments. Let’s work together and make it happen!

For more information, stay tuned to the EdgeX Foundry China Project Wiki: https://wiki.edgexfoundry.org/display/FA/China+Project.

LF Edge Member Spotlight: Altran

By Akraino Edge Stack, Blog, LF Edge, Member Spotlight

The LF Edge community is comprised of a diverse set of member companies that represent the IoT, Enterprise, Cloud and Telco Edge. The Member Spotlight blog series highlights these members and how they are contributing to and leveraging open source edge solutions. Today, we sat down with Shamik Mishra, Vice President, Research and Innovation of Altran, to discuss the importance of open source software, collaborating with industry leaders in edge computing, security, how they contribute to the Akraino Edge Stack project and the impact of being a part of the LF Edge ecosystem.

Can you tell us a little about your organization?

Altran is a world leader in engineering and R&D services. The Group offers a unique value proposition that helps customers meet their transformation and innovation challenges. Altran supports its customers, from concept to industrialization, to develop the products and services of tomorrow. Altran has been working for more than 35 years with major players in many sectors: Automotive, Aeronautics, Space, Defense & Naval, Rail, Infrastructure & Transport, Industry & Consumer Products, Life Sciences, Communications, Semiconductor & Electronics, Software & Internet, Finance & Public Sector. In 2019, Capgemini, and Altran announced a merger project in the context of a friendly tender offer to create a global leader in Intelligent Industry. Altran generated 3.2 billion in revenue in 2019, with more than 50,000 employees in more than 30 countries.

Why is your organization adopting an open source approach?

Open Source Software has revolutionized the technology industry globally in more ways than one. It has significantly shortened software/product development cycles, spurred innovation and boosted entrepreneurship. Licenses come free of cost, with the expenses typically being for deploying, hardening, supporting, customizing, and maintaining the software. Businesses have the flexibility of choosing and customizing the best solutions for their needs. At Altran, we help our clients lead into the future by solving their most complex engineering and R&D problems through specialized solutions. We see open source software as an opportunity to differentiate our offerings by accelerating development of such solutions for our clients. This provides them the required flexibility of choice and a way to optimize costs for creating value towards their clients.

Why did you join LF Edge and what sort of impact do you think LF Edge has on the edge, networking, and IoT industries?

Altran envisioned the significant role and impact of Edge Computing early in its evolution cycle. However, one of the key challenges is that different organizations in the industry perceive Edge Computing differently based on the nature of their business or pursuit. LF Edge is an umbrella organization that is agnostic of hardware, silicon, cloud and OS. This helps the industry leaders arrive at a common understanding of Edge Computing and create an open and standard framework for the technology. We believe LF Edge can decisively reduce the semantic dissonance on Edge Computing in the industry and help businesses work together to accelerate innovation.

What do you see as the top benefits of being part of the LF Edge community?

 LF Edge community has industry leading organizations as members who specialize in large-scale hardware manufacturing (chip, mobile devices, network equipment etc.), software product development, operating systems, engineering services, telecom services, cloud solutions and more. This diversity helps set a broad framework for Edge Computing by considering various concerns and scenarios relevant to the member domains. Since the framework will be open source, it strengthens its credibility and will likely be adopted widely in the industry. Altran being a world leader in engineering and R&D services, believes the LF Edge forum presents a unique opportunity to engage with the community and contribute to the open source Edge Computing framework. Based on our early start in this space, the exposure to experts on the LF Edge forum helps us to benefit from the views and propositions of diverse organizations to validate and strengthen our service offerings and competencies in Edge Computing.

What sort of contributions has your team made to the community, ecosystem through LF Edge participation?

Altran aims to play a leading role in the Edge Computing ecosystem by contributing some of its software and solution breakthroughs to the open community, including (but not limited to) contributions to compute frameworks, APIs, management plane and use cases. Altran is currently actively pursuing the Akraino project particularly on security aspects. Other interest areas are device edge and intelligent application development leveraging the LF edge projects.

What do you think sets LF Edge apart from other industry alliances?

Three key features set LF Edge apart from other industry alliances and are likely to make it successful: 1. The diversity of members. The community has members ranging across multiple domains such as Chip, Mobile, Network Equipment Manufacturing, software product development, telecom service providers, cloud service providers, engineering service providers etc. The diversity is also geographical. It includes organizations that are across various geos, thereby helping to absorb wide range of views and concerns for the community. With so much diversity the framework is inclined to remain neutral and is unlikely to be driven by the interests of a few members in the community. 2. The timing of the alliance Edge Compute, in its evolution, is currently at a point, where it is possible for the industry to come together and define a framework and standards that can be eventually adopted by various players and can be evolved and customized. Unlike other alliances, the timing of this alliance helps it to be more successful. 3. The framework is open source and the projects onboarded are also open source. This makes it easy to accelerate the innovation in this space. The community also draws strength from the support of Linux Foundation.

How will  LF Edge help your business?

Altran’s vision for Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) is to create a developer-centric architecture and cloud-native platform that will make Edge discovery, onboarding and management of applications easy and seamless for Edge application developers. The Altran Ensconce platform brings together multiple capabilities, accelerators and frameworks that enables rapid development of Multi-Access Edge Compute (MEC) solutions. Being part of LF Edge, we see an opportunity to further evolve our MEC solutions, working with the LF Edge alliance on the open source framework for Edge Computing. We believe that our clients can benefit from this approach by quick adoption of our solutions and be ahead in their businesses. We also believe that there is a unique opportunity for us to contribute to the community from our experience.

What advice would you give to someone considering joining LF Edge?

LF Edge is a great opportunity for various organizations in the industry that are interested in collaborating with other industry leaders to drive innovation in Edge Computing and mutually benefit from the ecosystem. Organizations can shape the future of Edge Computing by joining this alliance early in the innovation cycle.

To learn more about Akraino Edge Stack, click here. To find out more about our members or how to join LF Edge, click here. Additionally, if you have questions or comments, visit the  LF Edge Slack Channel and share your thoughts in the #community or #akraino-tsc channels.

How Open Source is Driving 5G, Edge, AI and IoT

By Blog, Training, Trend

The 5G transition is well underway, with the technology rolled out on every continent, and adoption growing daily. This is leading to advances in other technologies – most especially edge computing, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things. Many don’t realize that open source software is at the heart of the 5G revolution, making it possible in the first place and helping to speed implementation thanks to shared R&D efforts and greater interoperability than prior wireless standards. 

Considering the accelerating rate of change in the networking and telecommunications industry, it can be difficult to stay up to speed on these and the other latest technologies. Managers and their technical partners will be the ones to build the next great innovations based on the capabilities of 5G – but in order to do so, they require a fundamental understanding of the market pressures and a basic understanding of the technologies driving this shift – technologies like edge computing, IoT and AI.

That’s why The Linux Foundation offers two online training courses exploring these topics free of charge. Business Considerations for 5G, IoT, and AI is designed to help you discern between the hype and real opportunities of 5G technologies. Open Source and the 5G Transition explains the open source infrastructure powering the future and how to leverage it for business benefit. 

These courses are only two hours long, and no technical expertise is required. They are designed for anyone from business professionals to engineers who want to improve their understanding of these technologies and the changes they bring. Register for free today and increase your knowledge!

Linux Foundation Executive to Give Keynote Webinar on Momentum, Direction of Open Source Networking & Edge

By Announcement, Event, LF Edge

SAN FRANCISCO, April 15, 2020 — The  Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, will host a keynote webinar — “The State of Open Source Networking & Edge” — featuring Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, Edge, & IOT. The webinar takes place April 30 at 9:00 AM PT and is open to anyone interested in attending.

Hosted by LF Networking (LFN) and LF Edge, the webinar serves as a virtual update on the current state of the open networking and edge landscapes. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the Open Networking & Edge Summit (ONES) North America, which was initially scheduled to take place in Los Angeles, Calif. later this month, has been rescheduled to September 28-29. However, the important work of the ecosystem continues and it’s time for an update on that progress.

“We are all learning to adapt and be more nimble than ever before,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, Edge & IoT, the Linux Foundation. “While we aren’t able to meet face to face with our communities physically, we continue to accelerate community collaboration and momentum while evolving critical industry initiatives that impact how the world accesses information. Please join us April 30 to hear how open networking and edge communities are moving the needle.”

The webinar will not only cover critical industry initiatives such as the Common NFVI Telco Taskforce (CNTT), OPNFV Verification Program (OVP), new project inductions and releases, but Joshipura will present compelling evidence on how community collaboration is accelerating the path forward. This will include an update on deployments, business value-add, R&D, developer engagement, and challenges the community is addressing in 2020. The webinar also presents an opportunity to hear these major LF Networking and LF Edge announcements first-hand. Attendees are encouraged to engage and participate in an open Q&A session following the presentation.

The webinar serves as the first in a series of LF Networking Webinars to bring the community up to speed on open source networking news, initiatives, and innovations and provide a new opportunity for community engagement. LF Edge’s webinar series, “On the Edge with LF Edge,” kicked off last month with an update on the Akraino project. The next LF Edge webinar, “EdgeX101: Intro, Roadmap, and Use Cases,” takes place April 23.

Registration is required to attend the webinar, which takes place April 30 at 9:00 am PT. Details and registration information available here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_pt6VgEy2S46T6qW5oNRLPA

Additionally, the important work of the LFN technical communities continues unabated as the LFN Technical Meetings Spring 2020 (initially co-located with ONES North America) are being held virtually from April 21-23. Details and registration: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/calendar/lfn-technical-meetings/

Details on ONES, including registration and final agenda, are available here: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-networking-edge-summit-north-america/

 

About the Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and industry adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

State of the Edge is Now Part of LF Edge

By Blog, Open Glossary of Edge Computing, State of the Edge

Written by Matthew Trifiro, CMO of Vapor IO and co-chair of State of the Edge

Last week, we were thrilled to announce State of the Edge has become an official project of The Linux Foundation’s LF Edge. You can read the press release here.

In 2017, just as edge computing was entering the zeitgeist, a few like-minded companies came together to create State of the Edge. The goal was to bring clarity and a common understanding to the emerging market of edge computing. Back then, there was no LF Edge and edge computing felt like the early days of cloud or the early days of containers. A few pioneers could be found laying the technological foundations, but the practitioners did not share a common vocabulary and a lot of confusion and misunderstanding ensued.

We started with a vision of funding vendor-neutral research. Since launching, we’ve built an incredible community and published three major edge research reports, all of which are offered free of charge under a Creative Commons license. They are:

  • 2018 State of the Edge — the first inaugural report, which many people have called the “edge 101,” laid out a lot of foundational concepts. It has largely stood the test of time and is required reading at some companies during employee onboarding.
  • 2019 Data at the Edge — an experimental, shorter-form, topic-specific report that we built from research funded by Seagate. We will probably do more of these in the future.
  • 2020 State of the Edge — the second inaugural report, which we published in December 2019, was our most ambitious yet. We hired Phil Marshall of Tolaga Research to build a financial forecasting model to predict the expected demand for edge infrastructure.

In 2019, we began collaborating with The Linux Foundation, initially around the Open Glossary of Edge Computing and the Edge Computing Landscape. When LF Edge launched in January 2019, The Open Glossary became one of the five founding projects (including Akraino, EdgeX Foundry, Home Edge and Project EVE). The relationship became so beneficial to both parties, that by the end of last year it was clear that State of the Edge could find a long term home at The Linux Foundation. With LF Edge’s open governance model, we will continue to advance the State of the Edge as an open source project that maintains the organization’s original mission, further accelerating the adoption of edge computing technologies.

As of today, State of the Edge will officially merge with the Open Glossary of Edge Computing and the combined project will assume the State of the Edge name as a Stage 2 project (growth) at LF Edge. All State of the Edge projects will continue to be produced and funded collaboratively, with an explicit goal of producing original research without vendor bias and involving a diverse set of stakeholders.

The program will continue alongside a community that cares deeply about edge computing and the innovations that will be required to bring its promise to fruition.

State of the Edge will remain an active website but we’ll also be blogging and adding content on to the State of the Edge LF Edge website. Follow @LF_Edge for more news.

We’re looking forward to the next phase of growth for State of the Edge!

A special thanks is due to the original creators, contributors and funders of the State of the Edge project (alpha order).

Founding Members:

General Members:

Media and Analyst Partners:

EdgeX Foundry on ELIOT Blueprint

By Akraino, Blog, EdgeX Foundry, LF Edge

Written by Ramya Ranganathan, IOTG Validation Architect at Intel and EdgeX Foundry TSC member and EdgeX Test/QA WG Contributor

 

Background

In the recent past, EdgeX has experience challenges in running regression tests on different platforms. Some of the difficulty has been attributed to not running the EdgeX platform tests on While it could be attributed to a pre-validated OS/SW configuration.

Idea

By running on a pre-validated base platform, the hope was to eliminate the platform variabilities and limit the debug scope to EdgeX SW. This in turn would lead to a quicker debug, throughput and finally quicker time to market.

Why LF Edge Akraino Blue Print

Since LF Edge has been spearheading the Akraino Blue print effort to provide a holistic design of EdgeX suitable platforms with respect to scalability, availability, security using finite set of configurations, and ease of use by Zero-touch provisioning, a proposal was put forth by EdgeX QA/Test work group to use a light weight Akraino blue print as “pre-validated base platform” for EdgeX engineering activities. The motivation was that the team could leverage the results from Akraino’s blue print validation framework and use it as a stable base platform for EdgeX engineering activities. While the motivation was from within the EdgeX community, this also served as a testimony to LF Edge’s Akraino initiative and to the importance of the LF Edge umbrella project to provide wholistic solutions to the EdgeX and larger LF Edge communities.

Engineering Activity & Results

Akraino offers several Blue prints, so the first task was to identify the right blueprint for EdgeX needs. ELIOT blue print has been chosen by the EdgeX QA/Test WG for this initial feasibility study as it seems to have a light weight foot print as the name suggests and also it is supported on both ARM and x86 architectures. EdgeX QA/Test WG members got LF Edge accounts and access to the Thunder Pod2 ARM based system and were able to get the EdgeX tests up and running on ELIOT Blue print with minimal effort (which goes in line with the key principle behind Akraino’s blue print goal).

Learn more about the Akraino ELIOT Blueprint: AkrainoELIOTBluePrint.pdf

Conclusion

This activity is an example of the early engagements between EdgeX and other LF Edge projects – one of mutual value to the engineers in both communities and demonstrating the value of a larger edge computing umbrella project.

For more information about Akraino Blueprints, click here: https://wiki.akraino.org/. To learn more about EdgeX Foundry, click here: https://wiki.edgexfoundry.org/. Or, join the conversation on the EdgeX Foundry Slack Channel.

Linux Foundation, LF Networking, and LF Edge Announce Rescheduled Dates and Full Agenda for Open Networking & Edge Summit North America 2020

By Announcement

Industry’s Premier Open Networking & Edge Conference will feature business, technical and architectural sessions on Edge Computing, Cloud Native Networking, Enterprise IT, and Carrier and Cloud Developer Operations

SAN FRANCISCO, April 9, 2020 — The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, along with co-hosts LF Networking, the umbrella organization fostering collaboration and innovation across the entire open networking stack, and LF Edge, the umbrella organization building an open source framework for the edge, announced today the rescheduled event dates for Open Networking & Edge Summit North America (ONES, formerly Open Networking Summit) and the complete session line-up.

ONES North America 2020 will take place September 28-30 at the JW Marriott LA Live in Los Angeles, California. The summit line-up features prominent speakers from AT&T, eBay, Ericsson, Huawei Technologies, Rancher Labs, Red Hat, Toyota Motor Corporation, Verizon, VMware, Wells Fargo, Yelp, and more. The full event agenda is available here.

ONES is the industry’s premier open networking event now expanded to comprehensively cover Edge Computing, Edge Cloud, and IoT. It gathers technologists and executives from enterprises, telecoms and cloud providers for technical, architecture and business discussions that will shape the future of networking and edge computing. ONES enables collaborative development and innovation with a deep focus on both Open Networking and AI/ML-enabled use cases for 5G, IoT, Edge and Enterprise deployment, as well as targeted discussions on Edge and IoT frameworks and blueprints across numerous industries including Manufacturing, Retail, Oil and Gas, Transportation, and Telco Edge cloud.

“We have an impressive roster of experts lined up to present at Open Networking & Edge Summit North America,” said Arpit Joshipura, General Manager, Networking, Edge & IoT, The Linux Foundation. “With expanded content focused on open source Edge, this year’s event is the place to be for the latest in open innovation and knowledge-sharing across adjacent technologies such as 5G, cloud native, AI/ML, IoT, and more.”

ONES North America 2020 conference session tracks include: Carriers – Core, Edge & Access, Enterprise Networking & Edge, Cloud Networking & Edge, and Business Critical & Innovation.

Content is delivered in a variety of presentation formats including deep-dive technical tracks, panel discussions, tutorials, and case studies.

Featured Keynote Speakers Include:

  • Andre FuetschExecutive Vice President & Chief Technology Officer, AT&T Services, Inc.
  • Dan Kohn, Executive Director, Cloud Native Computing Foundation
  • Alex Choi, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Technology Innovation, Deutsche Telekom AG
  • Farah Papaioannou, Co-Founder and President, Edgeworx, Inc.
  • Anders Rosengren, Head of Architecture & Technology, Ericsson
  • Justin Dustzadeh, Chief Technology Officer, Equinix
  • Aparna Sinha, Director of Product Management, Google Cloud
  • Bill Ren, Chief Open Source Liaison Officer, ICT Infrastructure Open Source GM, Huawei
  • Marisa S. Viveros, Vice President of Strategy and Offerings, IBM
  • Arpit Joshipura, General Manager, Networking, Edge & IoT, The Linux Foundation
  • Heather Kirksey, Vice President, Community and Ecosystem Development, The Linux Foundation

Featured Conference Sessions Include:

  • 5G Slicing is a Piece of Cake! – Alla Goldner, Director, Technology, Strategy & Standardization, Amdocs
  • Injecting Security to the Cloud – Susan Hinrichs, Software Engineer, Verizon Media
  • Architectural Patterns & Best-practices to Avoid Lock-ins with Serverless – Murali Kaundinya, Group CTO and Managing Director, Wells Fargo
  • Securing a Network Virtualized with Containers and Kubernetes: Example Solutions and Current Gaps – Samuli Kuusela, Security Architect, Ericsson & Amy Zwarico, Lead Member of Technical Staff, AT&T
  • Multi-Cluster Federation: Should Networking Impact The Solution? – Anil Kumar Vishnoi, Principal Software Engineer & Thomas D. Nadeau, Technical Director of NFV, Red Hat

Conference Registration is $950 through July 19, 2020 with additional registration options available including $300 Hall Passes, $575 Academic Passes, and $300 Student Passes.  Non-profit and group discounts are available as well; see details on the event registration page Members of The Linux Foundation, LFN and LF Edge receive a 20 percent discount on all registration fees; contact events@linuxfoundation.org to request a member discount code. Applications for diversity and needs-based scholarships are currently being accepted; for information on eligibility and how to apply, please click here. We are continuously monitoring the COVID-19/Novel Coronavirus situation and are committed to converting ONES North America 2020 into a virtual experience should it not be safe to bring attendees together in person. Please continue to visit our website and follow us on Twitter and Facebook for updates.

Open Networking & Edge Summit North America 2020 is made possible thanks to our sponsors, including Platinum Sponsors Cloud Native Computing Foundation, Ericsson, and Huawei, Gold Sponsor IBM, and Silver Sponsor Red Hat. For information on becoming an event sponsor, click here.

Members of the press who would like to request a press pass to attend should contact Jill Lovato at jlovato@linuxfoundation.org.

Additional Resources: 

About The Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and industry adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

The Linux Foundation Events are where the world’s leading technologists meet, collaborate, learn and network in order to advance innovations that support the world’s largest shared technologies.

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

State of the Edge Merges with LF Edge to Provide Unified Edge Computing Thought Leadership

By Announcement, State of the Edge

  • State of the Edge will continue as the industry’s first open research program on edge computing
  • Under LF Edge, State of the Edge, Open Glossary of Edge Computing and the Landscape will continue to pave the way for industry alignment 

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – April 8, 2020 –  LF Edge, an umbrella organization under The Linux Foundation that aims to establish an open, interoperable framework for edge computing independent of hardware, silicon, cloud, or operating system, today announced that it has acquired State of the Edge, a vendor-neutral platform for open research on edge computing. The State of the Edge will merge with Open Glossary of Edge Computing and the combined project will assume the State of the Edge name as a Stage 2 project (growth) under LF Edge.

Founded in 2017 by industry pioneers Vapor IO, Packet by Equinix, Edge Gravity by Ericsson, Arm, and Rafay Systems, the State of the Edge organization has published three major edge research reports, all offered free- of- charge under a Creative Commons license: the landmark 2018 State of the Edge report, the 2019 Data at the Edge report and, most recently, the 2020 State of the Edge report. The organization’s founding co-chairs, Matthew Trifiro, CMO of Vapor IO, and Jacob Smith, VP Bare Metal Strategy & Marketing of Equinix, will remain as co-chairs of State of the Edge.

“We launched State of the Edge in 2018 as an effort to align and educate the market on what edge computing truly is, and what is needed to implement it,” said Trifiro. “Edge computing represents a long-term transformation of the Internet, and together this coalition has created a community-supported research model second to none. We’re thrilled to contribute this program to LF Edge, where we believe it can flourish even further.”

With its open governance model, LF Edge will continue to advance the State of the Edge under the project’s original mission, which has been to accelerate the edge computing industry by developing free, shareable research that can be used by all.

“As edge computing continues to evolve and expand, our goal with State of the Edge is to bring clarity and simplicity to the critical infrastructure required to support the future of edge computing,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, Edge, and IoT, the Linux Foundation. “The LF Edge projects span the continuum from cloud to device and, with the addition of State of the Edge, we’ll be able to bring our community and ecosystem closer to a more comprehensive edge stack, delivering shared innovation across technology sectors at the edge.”

The State of the Edge project will manage and produce the following assets under the LF Edge umbrella:

All State of the Edge projects will continue to be produced and funded collaboratively, with an explicit goal of producing original research without vendor bias and involving a diverse set of stakeholders. Supported by member funds and a community-driven philosophy, the State of the Edge mission has been to accelerate the edge computing industry by developing free, shareable research that can be used by all. The program will continue alongside a community that cares deeply about edge computing and the innovations that will be required to bring its promise to fruition.

Launched last January, LF Edge’s projects (Akraino Edge Stack, Baetyl, EdgeX Foundry, Fledge, Home Edge and Project EVE) support emerging edge applications across areas such as non-traditional video and connected things that require lower latency, and  faster processing and mobility. By forming a software stack that brings the best of cloud, enterprise and telecom, LF Edge helps to unify a fragmented edge market around a common, open vision for the future of the industry.

For information on how to participate in the project, please contact info@stateoftheedge.org.

Resources

About The Linux Foundation

Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation is supported by more than 1,000 members and is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation’s projects are critical to the world’s infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, and more.  The Linux Foundation’s methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org.

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The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.