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September 2020

On the “Edge” of Something Great

By Akraino, Announcement, Baetyl, Blog, EdgeX Foundry, Fledge, Home Edge, LF Edge, Open Horizon, Project EVE, Secure Device Onboard, State of the Edge

As we kick off Open Networking and Edge Summit today, we are celebrating the edge by sharing the results of our first-ever LF Edge Member Survey and insight into what our focuses are next year.

LF Edge, which will celebrate its 2nd birthday in January 2021, sent the survey to our more than 75 member companies and liaisons. The survey featured about 15 questions that collected details about open source and edge computing, how members of the LF Edge community are using edge computing and what project resources are most valuable. 

Why did you chose to participate in LF Edge?

The Results Are In

The Top 3 reasons to participate in LF Edge are market creation and adoption acceleration, collaboration with peers and industry influence. 

  • More than 71% joined LF Edge for market creation and adoption acceleration
  • More than 57% indicated they joined LF Edge for business development
  • More than 62% have either deployed products or services based on LF Edge Projects or they are planned by for later this year, next year or within the next 3-5 years

Have you deployed products or services based on LF Edge Projects?

This feedback corresponds with what we’re seeing in some of the LF Edge projects. For example, our Stage 3 Projects Akraino and EdgeX Foundry are already being deployed. Earlier this summer, Akraino launched its Release 3 (R3) that delivers a fully functional open source edge stack that enables a diversity of edge platforms across the globe. With R3, Akraino brings deployments and PoCs from a swath of global organizations including Aarna Networks, China Mobile, Equinix, Futurewei, Huawei, Intel, Juniper, Nokia, NVIDIA, Tencent, WeBank, WiPro, and more. 

Additionally, EdgeX Foundry has hit more than 7 million container downloads last month and a global ecosystem of complementary products and services that continues to increase. As a result, EdgeX Foundry is seeing more end-user case studies from big companies like Accenture, ThunderSoft and Jiangxing Intelligence. 

Have you gained insight into end user requirements through open collaboration?


Collaboration with peers

The edge today is a solution-specific story. Equipment and architectures are purpose-built for specific use cases, such as 5G and network function virtualization, next-generation CDNs and cloud, and streaming games. Which is why collaboration is key and more than 70% of respondents said they joined LF Edge to collaborate with peers. Here are a few activities at ONES that showcase the cross-project and members collaboration. 

Additionally, LF Edge created a LF Edge Vertical Solutions Group that is working to enable easily-customized deployments based on market/vertical requirements. In fact, we are hosting an LF Edge End User Community Event on October 1 that provides a platform for discussing the utilization of LF Edge Projects in real-world applications. The goal of these sessions is to educate the LF Edge community (both new and existing) to make sure we appropriately tailor the output of our project collaborations to meet end user needs. Learn more.

Industry Influence

More than 85% of members indicated they have gained insights into end user requirements through open collaboration. A common definition of the edge is gaining momentum. Community efforts such as LF Edge and State of the Edge’s assets, the Open Glossary of Edge Computing, and the Edge Computing Landscape are providing cohesion and unifying the industry. In fact,  LF Edge members in all nine of the projects collaborated to create an industry roadmap that is being supported by global tech giants and start-ups alike.

 

 

Where do we go from here? 

When asked, LF Edge members didn’t hold back. They want more. They want to see more of everything – cross-project collaboration, end user events and communication, use cases, open source collaboration with other liaisons. As we head into 2021, LF Edge will continue to lay the groundwork for markets like cloud native, 5G, and edge for  more open deployments and collaboration.  

 

September 29, 2020

LF Edge Member Spotlight: NetFoundry

By Blog, EdgeX Foundry, LF Edge, Member Spotlight

The LF Edge community comprises a diverse set of member companies and people 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 sit down with Jim Clardy, Co-Founder and Global Cloud Partners and Alliances at NetFoundry, to discuss the importance of open source, collaborating with industry leaders in edge computing and the impact of being a part of the LF Edge ecosystem.

Please tell us a little about your organization.

NetFoundry provides the leading zero trust networking platform offered as Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) to connect distributed applications, users, devices and locations through an optimized  global fabric. This enables: solutions and applications, ranging from edge to cloud, to easily embed zero trust networking inside the solution. Developers can embed secure, programmable, private, application-specific networking into their apps, using the open source Ziti software (Ziti.dev) which NetFoundry built and is the leading contributor to.

 

Why is your organization adopting an open source approach?

NetFoundry is built on open source Ziti. The next paradigm in networking is “Networking as code” and zero trust. With open source Ziti SDKs, developers can embed private networking into apps with a few lines of code. Ziti enables a new networking paradigm that greatly reduces the costs and simplifies the complexity of networking and implements zero-trust application embedded connectivity. Ziti is the leading open source platform for creating zero trust network connectivity over the Internet.

Why did you join LF Edge and what sort of impact do you think it has on the industry?

We believe open source communities have the power to shape technologies and markets. In addition to LF Edge, we are members of the Linux Foundation, EdgeX Foundry, and CNCF communities.

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

Accelerating the next paradigm in networking where networking as code and zero trust become ubiquitous. We believe networking will be transformed with cloud-orchestrated interoperability fueled by open source communities like LF Edge.

What contributions has your team made (or plans to make) to the community/ecosystem through LF Edge participation?

NetFoundry built and is the leading contributor to open source Ziti software, and we are excited to build the open Ziti community. NetFoundry is contributing code to open Ziti regularly.

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

You are able to draw on the Linux Foundation and related ecosystem of communities and contributors – there is a massive and unstoppable network effect created by LF Edge.

How might LF Edge help your business?

Accelerate the development of the Ziti project and community.

 

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

Don’t wait – do it today.

Learn more about NetFoundry here.

Learn more about open Ziti here.

Get started with Ziti on GitHub.

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 to share your thoughts and engage with community members.

 

 

September 24, 2020

Introduction to Project EVE, an open-source edge node architecture

By Blog, Project EVE
Written by Brad Corrion, active member of the Project EVE community and Strategic Architect at Intel 
No alt text provided for this image

This article originally ran as a LinkedIn article last month. 

At the inaugural August ZEDEDA Transform conference, I participated in a panel discussion entitled “Edge OSS Landscape, Intro to Project EVE and Bridging to Kubernetes”. Project EVE, an LF Edge project, delivers an open-source edge node, on which applications are deployed as either containers or VMs. As some audience members noted, they were pleasantly surprised that we didn’t spend an hour talking explicitly about the Project EVE architecture. Instead, we considered many aspects of a container-first edge, community open-source investments, and whether technologies like Kubernetes can be useful for IoT applications.

The Edge Buzz

There’s a lot of buzz around the edge, and many see it as the next big thing since the adoption of cloud computing. Just as the working definition of the cloud has morphed over time and conceptualized as a highly scalable, micro-service-based application hosted on computing platforms around the globe, so has the edge come to represent a computing style. To embrace the edge means to place your computing power as close to the data that it is processing, to balance the cost and latency of moving high volumes of data across the network. Most have also used the transition to edge computing to adopt the same “cloud-native” technologies and processes to manage their compute workloads in a similar fashion, regardless of where the compute is deployed, be it cloud, data center, or some remote edge environment.

Turning the Problem on its Head

That last part is what enthuses me about the shift to edge computing: we move away from highly curated enterprise IT devices (whose management tends to prevent change and modification) and move towards cloud-like, dynamic, scalable assets (whose management technologies are designed for innovation and responding to ever-changing circumstances). This is the classic example of “pets vs. cattle“, but sprinkled in with IoT challenges like systems that are distributed at extreme ends of the world, with costly trip charges required to manage with an on-site technician. The solution turns the problem on its it head. It requires organizations, from IT to line of business, to adopt practices of agility and innovation, so that they can manage and deploy solutions to the edge as nimbly as they experiment and innovate in the cloud.

Next up, we discussed the benefits of utilizing open source software for projects like Project EVE. Making an edge node easy to deploy, secure to boot, and remotely manageable is not trivial, and it is not worth competing over. The community, including competitors, can create a solid, open-source edge node architecture, such as Project EVE, and all parties can benefit from the group investment. With a well-accepted, common edge architecture, innovators can focus instead on the applications, the orchestration, and the usability of the edge. Even using the same basic edge node architecture, there is more than ample surface area left to compete for service value, elegance, and solution innovation. Just as the typical investment around Kubernetes is allowing masses of projects and companies to improve on nearly every aspect of orchestration, without making each project re-invent the basics of orchestration, we don’t need tens of companies re-inventing secure device deployments, secure boot, and container protection. Get the basics done (the “boring stuff” as I called it) and focus on the specialization around it.

Can container first concepts, and projects like Kubernetes, be effective at the edge and solving IoT problems? Yes. No doubt, there are differences in using Kubernetes in the cloud from using it to manage edge nodes, and some of those challenges include limited power infrastructure, communications and connectivity, and cost considerations. However, these technologies are very adaptable. A container will run as happily on an IOT device, an IoT gateway, or an edge server. How you connect to and orchestrate the containers on those devices will vary. Most edges won’t need a local Kubernetes cluster. Distant Kubernetes infrastructures could remotely orchestrate a local edge node or local edge cluster.

Infrastructure as Code

A common theme in edge orchestration architectures is local orchestration, which provides enough power to a small orchestrator running at the edge to make decisions while offline from a central orchestrator. Projects like Open Horizon, which IBM recently open-sourced to the LF Edge, is designed to bridge traditional cloud orchestration to edge devices with a novel distributed policy engine. This distributed policy engine is executing and responding to changing conditions even when disconnected. Adopting an “infrastructure as code” mentality provides administrators a high degree of configuration and control of the target environment, even over remote networks. There is high confidence in the resulting infrastructure configurations, but with the variability as to “when” the changes are received due to bandwidth considerations. Could this be used on oil and gas infrastructure in the jungles of Ecuador? Yes. However, the challenge is in deciding which of the philosophies and projects are best suited to the needs of the situation.

If you find yourself architecting your edge node or using a simple Linux installation, while kicking the security can down the road, or are otherwise bogged down by remote manageability challenges when you’d rather be innovating and solving domain-specific problems, look to the open-source community. Specifically to projects like Project EVE, to give you a leg up for your edge architecture.

Please feel free to connect with me and start a conversation about this article. Here are some additional resources:

  • Explore how Intel is connecting open source communities with the retail market through the Open Retail Initiative
  • Be sure to explore Project EVE, Open Horizon, EdgeX Foundry and more projects at the LF Edge
September 23, 2020

Vibrant Networking, Edge Open Source Development On Full Display at Open Networking & Edge Summit

By Announcement

  • Deep Dive demonstrations on 5G, Edge, IOT, O-RAN, AI, Cloud Native & CNFs covering most important enterprise, cloud and telecom use cases 
  • Expert live sessions on “Why Open Source for Edge?” answered – Over 75% say collaborative market creation and adoption acceleration are top factors for participating in open source 
  • Total value of software created by shared innovation model totals $7.3B (2000+ Devs over 6+ years), according to new COCOMO research, “Estimated Development Value of LFN Software”
  • 5 tracks, 13  keynote presentations, 80+ sessions with thousands of peers attending to collaborate on business value of open networking & edge 

SAN FRANCISCO –  September 23, 2020 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today marked significant progress in the open networking and edge spaces. In advance of the Open Networking and Edge Summit happening September 28-30, Linux Foundation umbrella projects LF Edge and LF Networking demonstrate recent achievements highlighting trends that set the stage for next-generation technology. 

“We are thrilled to announce a number of milestones across our networking and edge projects, which will be on virtual display at ONES next week,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, Edge and IOT, at the Linux Foundation. “Indicative of what’s coming next, our communities are laying the groundwork for markets like cloud native, 5G, and edge to explode in terms of open deployments.” 

Recent Acceleration within Networking & Edge includes:

  • LFN is shepherding the culmination of Cloud Native and 5G (5G Cloud Native demo, OVP, which now includes Cloud Native requirements). 
  • The industry is becoming accustomed to a new way of compliance and verification  out in the open (via OVP) – be it cloud native, 5G, Edge, or otherwise. 
  • SDN + NFV: OPNFV celebrates its sixth birthday as CNTT prepares to issue its Baraque release; meanwhile, OpenDaylight issues Aluminum, its 13th release. 

“We are together in a tough period. Thanks to all developers and contributors of LFN and LF Edge to tirelessly propel various projects to be on the trac,” said Dr. Junlan Feng, chief scientist at China Mobile, general manager of AI and Intelligent Operation R&D Center, and LFN Board chair. “Cloud Native and 5G are also top priorities of China Mobile to strengthen the experience of our customers. For moving forward, we see there is a great opportunity to fuse together network automation and network intelligence through ONAP, Acumos, Edge, etc. EUAG under LFN is conducting a study to collect and analyze the common requirements of 5G and intelligent network in our industry. We as a community will continuously work together. Thanks to Linux Foundation for taking the lead.”

At the edge, unification has happened and projects (e.g., Akraino, EdgeX Foundry, and Fledge) have delivered deployable code. And the new LF Edge Vertical Solutions Group is working to enable easily-customized deployments based on market/vertical requirements. Opportunities exist for end users across verticals – e.g., enterprise, automotive, industrial – to participate in shaping the direction of how open source gets deployed at the edge. Join the launch event, “Launching the LF Edge End User Community” on October 1, co-located with ONES. 

“Open source collaboration from edge to network is critical to achieve compatibility and complementarity.  ONES is THE event for communities to come together – learning about the latest trends in projects and determining how to evolve technology across boundaries and borders, ” said Melissa Evers-Hood, governing board chair for LF Edge and vice president, Intel Architecture, Graphics and Software, Software Business Strategy.

Technology in action at Open Networking & Edge Summit

See innovation in action during the virtual ONES event, September 28-30 and immerse yourself in the latest open source innovations across networking and edge with community-driven demos in the LF Networking & LF Edge Pavilion. The demos will be open throughout the event but visit during booth hours to engage with the demo managers and ask questions. 

Key demonstrations include:

  • OVP Automation DevOps: Agile Adoption in VNF/CNF based Network Service Industry: This demo will leverage ONAP SDC, ONAP VF-C, and OVP VTP projects to build DevOps for OPNFV Verification Program end-to-end VNF and Network service testing which helps to address agility, automation, and testing challenges.
  • Self-Healing Using Streaming Analytics & Observability for Latency Sensitive Kubernetes Workloads: This demo showcases components necessary towards zero touch infrastructure automation using Kubernetes enhancements, streaming analytics, host telemetry, and a viable path to deployment.
  • Real-Time Sensor Fusion for Loss Detection: This demo shows how different sensor devices can use LF Edge’s EdgeX Foundry open-middleware framework to optimize retail operations and detect loss at checkout. 
  • Managing Industrial IoT Data Using LF Edge: LF Edge projects EVE and Fledge will show how they can securely manage, connect, aggregate, process, buffer and forward any sensor, machine or PLC’s data to existing OT systems and any cloud.

More details and a list of all demos is available here: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-networking-edge-summit-north-america/features/lfn-lfe-demos/ 

The event also features an impressive line up of expert keynote speakers, 80+ sessions and five separate tracks, including: Business Critical & Innovation; Carrieres: Core/Edge/Access; Cloud Networking & Edge; Enterprise, Networking & Edge; and Sponsored Tutorials.

Don’t miss out on additional experiences, including “Ask the Expert Sessions” where attendees can engage directly with open networking and edge technical, business and community leaders daily in our Ask the Expert Sessions. “Mingle with Your Board and Technical Executives,” happening Tuesday at 4:00 pm ET, is facilitated by Will Townsend, Analyst Moor Insights & Strategy and will provide an open, informal discussion about the future of Networking, Edge, IOT, 5G, with top people at end users, operators, and vendors. No question is off the table – Ask Anything!

Due to the current COVID-19 outbreak, ONES is being offered virtually for only $50 US. Register today and join the community September 28-30: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-networking-edge-summit-north-america/register/.

Support from Project Technical Steering Committee Chairs

Akraino
“Launched in 2018, and founding project of LF Edge umbrella, Akraino delivers an open source software stack that supports a high-availability cloud stack optimized for edge computing systems and applications. With three successful releases, the community of over 40+ companies engaged worldwide, more than 20 fully integrated edge blueprints, blueprints tested in 15 user labs and a community lab, and a growing list of user deployments across the globe, Akraino truly become the enabler of edge computing use cases across Telco, IoT, Cloud, and Enterprise use cases,” said Kandan Kathirvel, TSC-Chair, AT&T, and Tina Tsou, co-chair, Arm. “This ONES event will be an opportunity to learn more about the edge use cases and Akraino solutions to it.”

EdgeX Foundry
“EdgeX Foundry is in its 4th year of development as a Linux Foundation project.With 6 successful releases, a community of over 180 committers worldwide, more than 7 million container downloads, and a growing list of commercial companies adopting and using EdgeX (like Accenture, HP, ThunderSoft, Tibco, IOTech Systems, and Jiangxing Intelligence), we believe EdgeX has established itself as one of, if not the, premier open source edge solution frameworks,”  said Jim White, TSC Chair, EdgeX Foundry and CTO of IOTech. “We are excited that ‘edge’ has been incorporated into the formerly Open Network Summit, and we are looking forward to our participation in the new “edge” tracks with our fellow LF Edge project members.”

Fledge
“Fledge is an open source framework and community for the industrial edge focused on applications for critical operations, condition-based monitoring, predictive maintenance, quality, situational awareness and safety.   Fledge integrates IIoT, sensors, machines, processes and other industrial assets with existing ISQ95 systems and the cloud” said Mark Riddoch, Fledge TSC Chair.  ” Fledge 1.8 is a mature, field-tested solution operating in power generation/transmission/distribution, water and wastewater processing, oil and gas, discrete manufacturing,  pharma and professional auto racing.  We invite manufacturers, equipment suppliers, system integrators, and partners to use Fledge and join our community as we grow THE open source application stack for industrial transformations.”

Open Horizon
“Being a young stage one project, Open Horizon is grateful for the opportunity to meet so many people active in the open source networking and edge computing areas.  Despite not being able to meet face-to-face, the Linux Foundation’s LFN and LF Edge have provided us with a great format that allows us to have personal, in-depth discussions with anyone who is interested from the comfort of home, and without needing to shout over the crowds to be heard.  We hope you’ll come visit us and enjoy our short demo,” said Joe Pearson, TSC chair, Open Horizon and Technology Strategist, and IBM Cloud. 

OPNFV
“This event will be an opportunity to learn about the pivotal changes, new emphasis, and growth in the OPNFV community. OPNFV’s conformance testing and infrastructure projects, led by the contributions of Orange and many other industry leaders, will soon benefit from even more Telco participation as the CNTT task force members merge with OPNFV. Also, we have paid-forward our successes by taking-on many Linux Foundation Networking Interns in OPNFV this year. Join us and hear our stories,”  said Al Morton, OPNFV TSC Chair.

ONAP
“Our ONAP Community is actively working on the certification of our 7th Major Release (Guilin) scheduled for the end of this year. This release continues to increase the support for 5G in areas of network slicing and O-RAN integration, ETSI (e.g. SOL007) and 3GPP standards, as well as our E2E CNF Orchestration chain,” said Catherine Lefevre, AVP-Network Cloud and SDN Platform Integration, AT&T, and chair of the ONAP Technical Steering Committee. “The ONES Summit is a great event where enterprises who have embraced ONAP can showcase their latest innovations. Also, do not miss our demo corners, which will illustrate areas such as: Onboarding 5G CNFs with ONAP, Policy-based RAN Management using O-RAN’s Open-Source Non-RealTime-RIC, ONAP Policy Framework Integration with Bell Canada’s Control Loop Use-cases, and much more. We also invite you to our special panel, ‘ONAP & Cloud Native – the Best of the Two Worlds’,  where we will present an overview of our ONAP Cloud Native journey.”

State of the Edge (SOTE)
“As edge computing goes mainstream it will bring forth a wave of technologies that require cooperation across the entire ecosystem to deliver value to end customers,” said Matt Trifiro, CMO of Vapor IO and co-chair of The Linux Foundation’s State of the Edge project. “The Open Networking and Edge Summit creates opportunities for technologists and end users to collaborate around open source for edge and networking that will revolutionize the cloud, robotics, artificial intelligence, healthcare, manufacturing, data centers, mobile devices, smart cities, and autonomous vehicles.”

 

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.

September 23, 2020

Where the Edges Meet: Public Cloud Edge Interface

By Akraino, Akraino Edge Stack, Blog

Written by Oleg Berzin, Ph.D., a member of the Akraino Technical Steering Committee and Senior Director Technology Innovation at Equinix

Introduction

Why 5G

5G will provide significantly higher throughput than existing 4G networks. Currently, 4G LTE is limited to around 150 Mbps. LTE Advanced increases the data rate to 300 Mbps and LTE Advanced Pro to 600Mbps-1 Gbps. The 5G downlink speeds can be up to 20 Gbps. 5G can use multiple spectrum options, including low band (sub 1 GHz), mid-band (1-6 GHz) and mmWave (28, 39 GHz). The mmWave spectrum has the largest available contiguous bandwidth capacity (~1000 MHz) and promises dramatic increases in user data rates. 5G enables advanced air interface formats and transmission scheduling procedures that decrease access latency in the Radio Access Network by a factor of 10 compared to 4G LTE.

The Slicing Must Go On

Among advanced properties of the 5G architecture, Network Slicing enables the use of 5G network and services for a wide variety of use cases on the same infrastructure. Network Slicing (NS) refers to the ability to provision a common physical system to provide resources necessary for delivering service functionality under specific performance (e.g. latency, throughput, capacity, reliability) and functional (e.g. security, applications/services) constraints.

Network Slicing is particularly relevant to the subject matter of the Public Cloud Edge Interface (PCEI) Blueprint. As shown in the figure below, there is a reasonable expectation that applications enabled by the 5G performance characteristics will need access to diverse resources. This includes conventional traffic flows, such as access from mobile devices to the core clouds (public and/or private) as well as the general access to the Internet, edge traffic flows, such as low latency/high speed access to edge compute workloads placed in close physical proximity to the User Plane Functions (UPF), as well as the hybrid traffic flows that require a combination of the above for distributed applications (e.g. online gaming, AI at the edge, etc). One point that is very important is that the network slices provisioned in the mobile network must extend beyond the N6/SGi interface of the UPF all the way to the workloads running on the edge computing hardware and on the Public/Private Cloud infrastructure. In other words, “The Slicing Must Go On” in order to ensure continuity of intended performance for the applications.


The Mobile Edge

The technological capabilities defined by the standards organizations (e.g. 3GPP, IETF) are the necessary conditions for the development of 5G. However, the standards and protocols are not sufficient on their own. The realization of the promises of 5G depends directly on the availability of the supporting physical infrastructure as well as the ability to instantiate services in the right places within the infrastructure.

Latency can be used as a very good example to illustrate this point. One of the most intriguing possibilities with 5G is the ability to deliver very low end to end latency. A common example is the 5ms round-trip device to application latency target. If we look closely at this latency budget, it is not hard to see that to achieve this goal a new physical aggregation infrastructure is needed. This is because the 5ms budget includes all radio/mobile core, transport and processing delays on the path between the application running on User Equipment (UE) and the application running on the compute/server side. Given that at least 2ms will be required for the “air interface”, the remaining 3ms is all that’s left for the radio/packet core processing, network transport and the compute/application processing budget. The figure below illustrates an example of the end-to-end latency budget in a 5G network.

The Edge-in and Cloud-out Effect

Public Cloud Service Providers and 3rd-Party Edge Compute (EC) Providers are deploying Edge instances to better serve their end-users and applications, A multitude of these applications require close inter-working with the Mobile Edge deployments to provide predictable latency, throughput, reliability, and other requirements.

The need to interface and exchange information through open APIs will allow competitive offerings for Consumers, Enterprises, and Vertical Industry end-user segments. These APIs are not limited to providing basic connectivity services but will include the ability to deliver predictable data rates, predictable latency, reliability, service insertion, security, AI and RAN analytics, network slicing, and more.

These capabilities are needed to support a multitude of emerging applications such as AR/VR, Industrial IoT, autonomous vehicles, drones, Industry 4.0 initiatives, Smart Cities, Smart Ports. Other APIs will include exposure to edge orchestration and management, Edge monitoring (KPIs), and more. These open APIs will be the foundation for service and instrumentation capabilities when integrating with public cloud development environments.

Public Cloud Edge Interface (PCEI)

Overview

The purpose of Public Cloud Edge Interface (PCEI) Blueprint family is to specify a set of open APIs for enabling Multi-Domain Inter-working across functional domains that provide Edge capabilities/applications and require close cooperation between the Mobile Edge, the Public Cloud Core and Edge, the 3rd-Party Edge functions as well as the underlying infrastructure such as Data Centers, Compute hardware and Networks. The Compute hardware is optimized and power efficient for Edge such as the Arm64 architecture.

The high-level relationships between the functional domains are shown in the figure below:

The Data Center Facility (DCF) Domain. The DCF Domain includes Data Center physical facilities that provide the physical location and the power/space infrastructure for other domains and their respective functions.

The Interconnection of Core and Edge (ICE) Domain. The ICE Domain includes the physical and logical interconnection and networking capabilities that provide connectivity between other domains and their respective functions.

The Mobile Network Operator (MNO) Domain. The MNO Domain contains all Access and Core Network Functions necessary for signaling and user plane capabilities to allow for mobile device connectivity.

The Public Cloud Core (PCC) Domain. The PCC Domain includes all IaaS/PaaS functions that are provided by the Public Clouds to their customers.

The Public Cloud Edge (PCE) Domain. The PCE Domain includes the PCC Domain functions that are instantiated in the DCF Domain locations that are positioned closer (in terms of geographical proximity) to the functions of the MNO Domain.

The 3rd party Edge (3PE) Domain. The 3PE domain is in principle similar to the PCE Domain, with a distinction that the 3PE functions may be provided by 3rd parties (with respect to the MNOs and Public Clouds) as instances of Edge Computing resources/applications.

Architecture

The PCEI Reference Architecture and the Interface Reference Points (IRP) are shown in the figure below. For the full description of the PCEI Reference Architecture please refer to the PCEI Architecture Document.

Use Cases

The PCEI working group identified the following use cases and capabilities for Blueprint development:

  1. Traffic Steering/UPF Distribution/Shunting capability — distributing User Plane Functions in the appropriate Data Center Facilities on qualified compute hardware for routing the traffic to desired applications and network/processing functions/applications.
  2. Local Break-Out (LBO) – Examples: video traffic offload, low latency services, roaming optimization.
  3. Location Services — location of a specific UE, or identification of UEs within a geographical area, facilitation of server-side application workload distribution based on UE and infrastructure resource location.
  4. QoS acceleration/extension – provide low latency, high throughput for Edge applications. Example: provide continuity for QoS provisioned for subscribers in the MNO domain, across the interconnection/networking domain for end-to-end QoS functionality.
  5. Network Slicing provisioning and management – providing continuity for network slices instantiated in the MNO domain, across the Public Cloud Core/Edge as well as the 3Rd-Party Edge domains, offering dedicated resources specifically tailored for application and functional needs (e.g. security) needs.
  6. Mobile Hybrid/Multi-Cloud Access – provide multi-MNO, multi-Cloud, multi-MEC access for mobile devices (including IoT) and Edge services/applications
  7. Enterprise Wireless WAN access – provide high-speed Fixed Wireless Access to enterprises with the ability to interconnect to Public Cloud and 3rd-Party Edge Functions, including the Network Functions such as SD-WAN.
  8. Distributed Online/Cloud Gaming.
  9. Authentication – provided as service enablement (e.g., two-factor authentication) used by most OTT service providers 
  10. Security – provided as service enablement (e.g., firewall service insertion)

The initial focus of the PCEI Blueprint development will be on the following use cases:

  • User Plane Function Distribution
  • Local Break-Out of Mobile Traffic
  • Location Services

User Plane Function Distribution and Local Break-Out

The UPF Distribution use case distinguishes between two scenarios:

  • UPF Interconnection. The UPF/SPGW-U is located in the MNO network and needs to be interconnected on the N6/SGi interface to 3PE and/or PCE/PCC.
  • UPF Placement. The MNO wants to instantiate a UPF/SPGW-U in a location that is different from their network (e.g. Customer Premises, 3rd Party Data Center)

UPF Interconnection Scenario

UPF Placement Scenario

UPF Placement, Interconnection and Local Break-Out Examples

Location Services (LS)

This use case targets obtaining geographic location of a specific UE provided by the 4G/5G network, identification of UEs within a geographical area as well as facilitation of server-side application workload distribution based on UE and infrastructure resource location.

 

Acknowledgements

Project Technical Lead: Oleg Berzin

Committers: Suzy GuTina Tsou Wei Chen, Changming Bai, Alibaba; Jian Li, Kandan Kathirvel, Dan Druta, Gao Chen, Deepak Kataria, David Plunkett, Cindy Xing

Contributors: Arif , Jane Shen, Jeff Brower, Suresh Krishnan, Kaloom, Frank Wang, Ampere

September 17, 2020

LF Edge Demos at Open Networking & Edge Summit

By Blog, EdgeX Foundry, Event, Fledge, LF Edge, Open Horizon, Project EVE, Secure Device Onboard

Open Networking & Edge Summit, which takes place virtually on September 28-30, is co-sponsored by LF Edge, the Linux Foundation and LF Networking. With thousands expected to attend, ONES will be the epicenter of edge, networking, cloud and IoT. If you aren’t registered yet – it takes two minutes to register for US$50 – click here.

Several LF Edge members will be at the conference leading discussions about trends, presenting use cases and sharing best practices. For a list of LF Edge focuses sessions, click here and add them to your schedule. LF Edge will also host a pavilion – in partnership with our sister organization LF Networking – that will showcase demos, including the debut of two new ones that feature a collaboration between Project EVE and Fledge and Open Horizon and Secure Device Onboarding. Check out the sneak peek of the demos below:

Managing Industrial IoT Data Using LF Edge (Fledge, EVE)

Presented by Flir, Dianomic, OSIsoft, ZEDEDA and making its debut at ONES, this demo showcases the strength of Project EVE and Fledge. The demo Fledge will show how the two open source projects work together to securely manage, connect, aggregate, process, buffer and forward any sensor, machine or PLC’s data to existing OT systems and any cloud. Specifically, it will show a FLIR IR Camera video and data feeds being managed as described.

 

Real-Time Sensor Fusion for Loss Detection (EdgeX Foundry):

Presented by LF Edge members HP, Intel and IOTech, this demo showcases the strength of the Open Retail Initiative and EdgeX Foundry. Learn how different sensor devices can use LF Edge’s EdgeX Foundry open-middleware framework to optimize retail operations and detect loss at checkout. The sensor fusion is implemented using a modular approach, combining point-of-sale , computer vision, RFID and scale data into a POC for loss prevention.

This demo was featured at the National Retail Federation Show in January. More details about the demo can be found in HP’s blog and  Intel blog.

               

Low-touch automated onboarding and application delivery with Open Horizon and Secure Device Onboard

Presented by IBM and Intel, this demo features two of the newest projects accepted into the LF Edge ecosystem – Secure Device Onboard was announced in July while Open Horizon was announced in April.

An OEM or ODM can generate a voucher with SDO utilities that is tied to a specific device. Upon purchase, they can send the voucher to the purchaser. With LF Edge’s Open Horizon Secure Device Onboard integration, an administrator can load the voucher into Open Horizon and pre-register the device. Once the device is powered on and connected to the network, it will automatically authenticate, download and install the Open Horizon agent, and begin negotiation to receive and run relevant workloads.

For more information about ONES, visit the main website: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-networking-edge-summit-north-america/. 

September 16, 2020

Exploration and Practices of Edge Computing: Cloud Managing Containerized Devices

By Blog, EdgeX Foundry, Industry Article, Trend

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

As an industry leader with vast experience and knowledge, Gavin has been writing a series of articles focused on edge computing. These articles are posted on his personal blog and are posted here with his permission. To read more content from Gavin, visit his website.

Introduction

The previous article introduced the cloud management virtualization device solution. This article will describe the Nebula project, a unified management of containerized devices and edge applications and data analysis cloud services.

Nebula Architecture

Project Nebula is designed based on the following key ideas:

  • Agnostic to device CPU architecture, supporting both x86 and ARM;
  • Agnostic to edge application frameworks, supporting EdgeX Foundry and other frameworks that can be packaged and run;
  • Agnostic to data analytics services, supporting on-premise and cloud deployment;
  • Support small to large scale deployment;
  • Support end-to-end multi-tenant operation model from device to cloud.
EdgeX Foundry Architecture

Nebula supports EdgeX Foundry framework, and we already published a live test bed at https://18.189.42.126/. Those who are interested in Nebula could contact yixingj@vmware.com to register for a trial, installation and user guides with detailed information.

Nebula Demo

Installation

Nebula is designed in containerized micro-service architecture, and is installed by default in OVA format. Similar to Pallas architecture introduced in the previous article, although Nebula package is encapsulated in OVA, it does not depend on any specific virtualization infrastructure or cloud platform to be installed. Technically, it could completely be converted to other formats, or install on any cloud platform that supports OVA format.

The basic resource requirement of Nebula is:

  • CPU: 2 virtual CPU cores
  • Memory: 8GB
  • Storage: 150GB

Its installation process is similar to other normal OVA, and users can log in as the administrator after completion.

Nebula Service Console

Vendor Portal

After the installation is complete, users can log in to the vendor portal as an administrator according to the prompt address in VM console as above and perform user management.

Nebula Management Portal

In Nebula, edge application services are defined as following: A Service can contain multiple Versions, and a Version contains multiple Service Components.

Edge Service Hierarchy

For each service created, it is necessary to determine parameters and resource requirement such as version, CPU platform, memory, storage, network, etc., to facilitate verification in full life cycle management.

Vendors can upload a set of EdgeX Foundry applications packaged in container images, and define categories, dependencies between containers, resource parameters, startup order, and parameters of connected data analysis cloud services.

After the release, users can see and deploy these edge services.

Device Registration

Before users actually deploy EdgeX Foundry applications, they must first register the device they would use into their Nebula accounts.

Users need to download Nebula agent program nebulacli.tar by themselves and run it on the device to complete the registration. This registration step could be manual, or it can be automated in batch operations for OEM.

./install.sh init -u user-acccount -p user-account-password -n user-device-name

User Portal

After completing the device registration, users can install and manage EdgeX Foundry or other edge applications released in advance on Nebula service by vendors. Users can find proper applications in the catalog.

After selection, users can further specify parameter settings of the deployment in the drag-and-drop wizard, which maps to parameter values defined by the vendor before.

After all parameters are set, the actual deployment can be carried out, either in batch or multiple times to multiple devices. After deploying EdgeX Foundry applications, users can monitor device resources and application run time status in real time.

Nebula provides complete Restful API documentation, with which users can automate operations to deploy EdgeX Foundry applications in a large scale.

Next

From the second article to this article, I introduced the basic method of building and managing virtualized devices and containerized devices from the cloud. But I did not answer the question of how to deal with single-point device failure. Compared with the traditionally inflexible and inefficient full redundancy or external NAS solution, the next article will introduce device clusters on hyper-convergence architecture.

September 8, 2020

Pushing AI to the Edge (Part One): Key Considerations for AI at the Edge

By Blog, LF Edge, Project EVE, State of the Edge, Trend

Q&A with Jason Shepherd, LF Edge Governing Board member and VP of Ecosystem at ZEDEDA

This content originally ran on the ZEDEDA Medium Blog – visit their website for more content like this.

This two-part blog provides more insights into what’s becoming a hot topic in the AI market — the edge. To discuss more on this budding space, we sat down with our Vice President of ecosystem development, Jason Shepherd, to get his thoughts on the potential for AI at the edge, key considerations for broad adoption, examples of edge AI in practice and some trends for the future.

Chart defining the categories within the edge, as defined by LF Edge

Image courtesy of LF Edge
September 1, 2020
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