Skip to main content
Monthly Archives

March 2023

Akraino and CAMARA Communities Join Forces to Boost API Integration in Edge Computing

By Akraino, Blog

At the Hefei High-tech Integrated Circuit Incubation Center in Anhui Province, a panel discussion moderated by Guanyu Zhu from Huawei’s Cloud Network OSDT team brought together experts from the Akraino and CAMARA communities, along with industry professionals, to explore the significance of APIs in edge computing and the potential for collaboration between the two communities. Prominent panelists included Tina Tsou, LF Edge Board Chair, Leo Li from Akraino TSC, Gao Chen, the senior engineer from China Unicom, and Shuting Qing, the open-source ecology expert from Huawei’s Cloud Network OSDT.

Shuting Qing provided insights into the origins of the CAMARA project, explaining that “Capability exposure aims to encapsulate these capabilities into a simple interface and expose it to developers for everyone to use.” CAMARA is a vital initiative designed to generate new revenue streams for European operators that have made substantial investments in 4G/5G networks. Qing emphasized the need to clarify the value scenarios and focus on monetization.

Leo Li discussed Akraino’s eagerness to collaborate with emerging communities like CAMARA, emphasizing the need for standardized edge computing hardware modules and the adoption of novel hardware interface technologies such as Ethernet, PCIe, and UCIe. Li highlighted the importance of integrating standardized hardware with an API-based business development model, stating, “We hope to further enhance the business flexibility of operators while promoting hardware standardization, and reduce costs and power consumption through standardization in conjunction with the trend of service APIization.”

The panelists also shared their views on the commercial realization of telecom edge cloud. Gao Chen emphasized the standardization of east-west interfaces, highlighting the importance of providing a unified and user-friendly API to access network capabilities, while Tina Tsou pointed out the potential benefits for various stakeholders, noting that “Edge computing can provide better performance and services, thereby increasing customer loyalty and revenue.”

Addressing potential challenges in implementing commercialization ideas, Leo Li indicated that “We believe that cost will be a crucial factor in the monetization process of edge cloud.” He advocated for standardizing hardware specifications and implementation methods and adopting an API-based business development model to minimize costs.

Tina Tsou expressed her expectations for the CAMARA community, emphasizing the need for more flexible and customizable edge computing capabilities, stronger equipment and data management capabilities, and enhanced security and credibility guarantees. She also called for increased cooperation with other open-source projects.

Shuting Qing and Tina Tsou shared their thoughts on how Akraino and CAMARA could work together to create a more open, collaborative, and innovative edge computing ecosystem. Qing considered that since CAMARA is discussing capability exposure, it would be worth exploring the integration of edge computing open capabilities, such as ETSI MP1, into the CAMARA. Meanwhile, Tsou proposed combining edge computing framework, openness, security and privacy protection, and application scenario expansion.

The panel discussion offered valuable insights into the role of APIs in edge computing and the potential collaboration between Akraino and CAMARA. As the industry continues to develop, the joint efforts of these two communities could result in a more open, collaborative, and innovative edge computing ecosystem that benefits all stakeholders.

Baetyl New Release Integrates With eKuiper and Delivers Edge to More Devices

By Baetyl, Blog, eKuiper, Project Release

Baetyl—an LF Edge project that extends cloud computing, data and service seamlessly to edge devices— has released v2.4.3 release. With the efforts of many active contributors, new functions have been added, and some existing functions have been continuously optimized since the previous v2.3.0 release. These new features continue to follow the cloud-native philosophy and build an open, secure, scalable, and controllable intelligent edge computing platform.

Compared to the previous Baetyl v2.3.0 releases, the new features and optimizations in v2.4.3 include:

  • Device management functionality has been refactored with the addition of a device template interface, support for calculating OT data collection values, support for IEC-104 protocol, updated OPC-UA and Modbus drivers, and updated driver-node binding logic;
  • Support for Windows platform has been added with the ability to generate Windows – platform images for the Baetyl edge main module;
  • Remote invocation has been implemented, allowing for remote access to specified edge services with results returned from the cloud;
  • New container mode with eKuiper as an optional system application;
  • New baetyl-rule module supports HTTP Target;
  • Adaptation to the highest K3s 1.24.4 version;
  • Fix workload type creation failure bug;

These new features are available and now you can view the release note here. Other features can be further explored by the developers, and Baetyl will continue to improve and optimize its functionality.

Integration with eKuiper

Baetyl uses eKuiper as a system optional application on the edge-side for stream processing and data analytics. The collaboration and integration with eKuiper increase the linkage between LF Edge projects and promote innovation. Platform and version adaptation enables Baetyl to run on more devices. The optimization of device management and new driver support prepare for the access of more devices with different protocols. From the point of eKuiper, this means you can deploy eKuiper more quickly and conveniently.

In the new version, the integration between Baetyl and eKuiper makes the following changes, including:

  • set mqtt client as Baetyl broker; 
  • mount eKuiper’s data file to the host to ensure no configuration loss; 
  • add k8s service to the eKuiper application to enable calling eKuiper’s open API from the host as well as from within the cluster to enable edge configuration changes; 
  • built-in eKuiper as an optional application in the Baetyl framework, so that eKuiper can be installed directly through Baetyl, eliminating the need for separate installation; 

After the integration, the Baetyl framework enhances the ability of edge message processing, while users can use Baetyl’s ability to use eKuiper more easily and quickly.

What’s next?

For future releases, the project is working on strengthening the management of non-intelligent devices at the edge, including providing

  • more comprehensive management functions for device models, devices, and drivers on the cloud management platform, 
  • a software gateway management module on the edge to support the ability of devices to connect through various industrial drivers,
  • a unified northbound connection protocol blink for access implementation.

The Baetyl project is also further expanding and optimizing the implementation of cloud storage at the underlying level, providing support for database storage outside of k8s crds. It’ll also enhance the integration with K8s cloud-native, providing more edge cloud-native capabilities for access, such as providing the ability to view edge description information, and so on.

Webinar Recap: How LF Edge Projects Track CO2 Footprint with Secure Monitoring at the Edge

By Alvarium, Blog, Project EVE

With community members from over 50 organizations gathered on LinkedIn and Zoom last week, LF Edge kicked off its first webinar this year. This webinar is a continuation of the “On the Edge with LF Edge” webinar series where we invite community members and industry leaders to share production case studies, project demos, and the latest updates from the LF Edge project communities! 

For this webinar, we had distinguished speakers, Mathew Yarger, Advisor at IOTA and Co-Founder of DigitalMRV, Steve Todd, VP Data Innovation and Strategy at Dell Technologies, and Kathy Giori, Global Partnerships and Outreach at MicroBlocks, who shared their insights on the LF Edge use case of using Project Alvarium and EVE to monitor the carbon footprint in the world’s first BioGas Plant, which uses harvest waste as its only fuel.

To kick off the webinar, the speakers addressed the challenge of inaccurate emissions reporting in sustainability. In fact, “85% of organizations are concerned about reducing their emissions, but only 9% are able to measure their emissions comprehensively,” said Yarger. The VSPT Wine Group in Chile required a solution to process data from various sensors measuring water, solids, gases, and anaerobic digestion processes in real-time to provide reliable insights into their carbon footprint. This issue was tackled by leveraging the Data Confidence Fabric (DCF) framework of Project Alvarium and the cloud computing capabilities of Project EVE.

You can read the published use case on the LF Edge case studies page and watch the webinar recording below to learn more about how LF Edge projects enable organizations to take more informed and effective steps toward reducing their environmental impact.

Love this webinar? Make sure to subscribe to LF Edge on LinkedIn, so you won’t miss our next webinar and the opportunity to engage with the speakers live!

Get involved:

If you’re interested in getting involved in Project Alvarium and Project EVE, you can find the communities on the LF Edge Slack channels #eve and #alvarium (and related channels).

Project Alvarium:

You can learn more about Project Alvarium by visiting its wiki and GitHub. Have questions about the project? Subscribe to the project mailing list and Technical Steering Committee (TSC) mailing list and attend the TSC meetings every two weeks at 11 AM Eastern Time.

Project EVE:

You can learn more about Project EVE by visiting its wiki and GitHub documentation. Have questions about the project? Subscribe to the project mailing list and attend the TSC meetings that occur every four weeks on Thursday at 11:30 AM Eastern Time.

The developer program offered by ZEDEDA lets industry adopters run proof-of-concept (PoC) distributed edge orchestration programs at no cost. The Alvarium/IOTA teams have developed their applications and tools to be ready to deploy on EVE, so that you can remotely manage them no matter where your EVE edge node is located.