Edge: Don't Touch That!

Edge is NOT just lots of mini-clouds! Let’s really talk about management because we cannot afford to fix operations later. In this talk, we’ll do just that.

Edge infrastructure management has many unique challenges including restricted access, number of sites, limited connectivity and amount of available overhead for management infrastructure. Each of these presents significant hurdles for running distributed sites and many operators face all of them.

We’re going to examine these and other Edge IT management challenges with an eye towards pragmatic solutions and industry parallels. We’ll spend extra time looking at how cloud deployment approaches like immutable infrastructure, blue/green deployments and continuous integration can be applied at the edge.

Rob Hirschfeld & Mark Thiele brings their unique Edge perspective AND the opinions of their guests from “the latest shiny” and "IDCA: to infinity and beyond" podcasts.

Transcript

1. @zehicle @mthiele10 Don’t touch that! Why Edge IT is not Cloud IT Open Infrastructure Summit, Spring 2019
2. @zehicle @mthiele10 “Edge” is about integration & AUtomation Like cloud, but also different...
3. @zehicle @mthiele10 it is physically distributed, logically restricted & networking limited.
4. @zehicle @mthiele10 Mark Thiele @mthiele10 Director Engineering Edge Computing Ericsson & Chair of IDCA Technical Committee Host of To Infinity Paradigm & Beyond podcast Focused on the development of a successful edge marketplace
5. @zehicle @mthiele10 @zehicle CEO of RackN Co-Founder Digital Rebar Co-Host of L8istSh9y podcast Focused on zero-touch automation of distributed bare metal infrastructure. Rob Hirschfeld
6. @zehicle @mthiele10 10 Edge = 1,000s of sites Current DC Ops tools are built for 10s of sites
7. @zehicle @mthiele10 Edge = 1,000s of sites 100
8. @zehicle @mthiele10 1,000 Edge = 1,000s of sites
9. @zehicle @mthiele10 Edge is not CLOUD! We canNOT just “SCALE DOWN” PLATFORMS NOR “scale Up” Management
10. @zehicle @mthiele10 Edge is not CLOUD! We canNOT just “SCALE DOWN” PLATFORMS NOR “scale Up” Management SCALE IN And SCALE OUT MUST
11. @zehicle @mthiele10 So many Questions… so few answers • Platform required? Kubernetes, other or no standard? • Shared and secure data storage? • Do we have to wait for a platform? • What are we waiting for to be build? • Too many (10,000) Opportunities?! • Who is the edge? Operator networks? Retail? Home? • What are the killer apps? • Which comes first: the app or the platform? • And...how much time do we have before AWS takes over?
12. @zehicle @mthiele10 Finding solutions is urgent. NO single “right” answer.
13. @zehicle @mthiele10 So many Questions… so few answers • Platform required? Kubernetes, other or no standard? • Shared and secure data storage? • Do we have to wait for a platform? • What are we waiting for to be build? • Too many (10,000) Opportunities?! • Who is the edge? Operator networks? Retail? Home? • What are the killer apps? • Which comes first: the app or the platform? • And...how much time do we have before AWS takes over? ZERO: AWS IS NOT WAITING AROUND FOR A DESIGN COMMITTEE
14. @zehicle @mthiele10 50% of the EDGE infrastructure Is already in place
15. @zehicle @mthiele10 The “Edge” already exists But it’s a patchwork • Multiple operators • Heterogeneous environments • No standard platforms (especially data storage) • NOT designed for multi-tenant • NOT designed for self-service Today’s solutions are bad choices 1. Run everything yourself from multiple co-lo 2. Limit to “edges” managed by a single provider
16. @zehicle @mthiele10 We already have enough clouds Edge is NOT a new cloud
17. @zehicle @mthiele10 Yes! • API Driven & Self-Service • Highly Automated • Platform focused No! • Distributed • Multi-vendor • Location sensitive ISN’T Edge just like Cloud?
18. @zehicle @mthiele10 Hello, Kubernetes! Take me to your Metal
19. @zehicle @mthiele10 But developers need platforms Everything is a SaaS or PaaS now Edge also needs to be a platform CI/CD takes on a whole new challenge Platforms need more environmental awareness Edge applications will by virtue require new thinking AND they should also be comfortable to cloud developers.
20. @zehicle @mthiele10 OPERATIONAL PATTERNS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN APIS
21. @zehicle @mthiele10 Solve the hardest problems first We’re not building something new! Under-represented challenges: • Cross-operator integration (sometimes called “hybrid”) • Zero-touch from the bare metal • Managing data locality and transit • Oh, and security Ultimately, these are the non-cloud use-cases
22. @zehicle @mthiele10 Questions?