Open Infrastructure Events

Edge in Production at the Upcoming Project Teams Gathering!

This article is part of a series of blog posts published by the OpenInfra Edge Computing Group, to address some of the thornier aspects of edge computing as it enters the mainstream adoption cycle.

March 7, 2022
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Join the OpenInfra Edge Computing Group to talk about edge conundrums and how to turn them into solutions

The next Project Teams Gathering (PTG) event is approaching quickly. We are all looking forward to see contributors and technology enthusiasts gathering together online on April 4 – 8, 2022 to discuss how to take open infrastructure projects to the next level. But you can’t just talk about infrastructure without also eventually touching on edge computing! During the upcoming PTG, the OpenInfra Edge Computing Group will be holding sessions on three consecutive days with a focus on an often overlooked aspect, the actual deployment and operations of edge infrastructures. 

Theory and use cases are important, but what happens when the rubber hits the road, or in other words, when your edge infrastructure is ready to be deployed and run in production.  During this PTG the edge sessions are organized around the dependencies and requirements for successfully launching and managing edge architectures in the field. Each session over the three days builds on the requirements and actions needed to take an edge infrastructure from development to deployment and into production. Starting from “Day 0”, the preparation/development phase before the deployment so to speak, and moving into “Day 1”, the actual deployment into the field, followed by “Day 2” or Day N (depending on who you talk to) which includes the management of the systems in production, each step calls for different components that interrelate with each other. The nomenclature for these three phases is borrowed from the  telecommunications industry, but they are applicable on a much wider scale and many more industries. 

There is so much to cover, but a quick overview of the sessions will help you navigate through our agenda.

Monday, April 4, 2022 (1300 UTC – 1500 UTC) — Day 0 Getting Ready: Automation and Templates, its all about the code

After a brief introduction to the Day 0, 1, 2/N concepts, the scheduled two hours will be dedicated to the exploration of the preparation phase of  your edge buildout. The topics  include a deep dive into how automation is critical,  the creation of vanilla templates with variables that can be inserted during Day 2 deployment, site prep work and all the challenges with laying the groundwork for a successful and repeatable edge deployment.  If time allows we will also explore new use cases, which is always timely as a growing number of industry segments are getting ready for production deployments.

Tuesday, April 5, 2022 (1500 UTC – 1700 UTC) — Day 1 Field Deployment: Site Specific Variables and Zero Trust, reaching the unreachable

This day is dedicated for ‘Day-1’ activities, which is where things get really exciting! We will be discussing deployment and configuration challenges. How can you automate the insertion of site-specific variables, such as IP addresses as you deploy edge out to hundreds or thousands of highly distributed locations? Another session will explore how to validate that the deployment was successful and verify your infrastructure during the stages of the overall deployment process.  And finally, a discussion of deploying infrastructure over a Zero Trust environment, as security needs to be taken into consideration, would not be out of place.

Wednesday, April 6, 2022 (1400 UTC – 1700 UTC) — Day 2 Operations and Production: Monitoring, Patching, Process Automation, keeping it all running

So you have finally deployed all your sites and you are ready to support them in operations.  Now what?  The sessions on our last day will focus on on ‘Day- 2, or as some call it ‘Day-n’, operations.  Just because your infrastructure and workloads are all operational,  does not mean that you can afford to sit back and relax! In production, you  need to figure out how to best operate and maintain your infrastructure to keep your workloads running smoothly. We will discuss the challenges and potential solutions with a focus on automation, Infrastructure as Code and more.  Some specific topics include:

  • Infrastructure as Code
  • GitOps
    • How configuration changes trigger automated processes (validation and other sequences)
  • Patching and library/repository management
    • log4j, CentOS changes, and more
  • Automation
    • How do you trigger updates and changes?
    • Trouble ticket creation based on monitoring of network/nodes
    • Testing/root cause analysis triggered by trouble ticket creation

As you can see from this brief overview, we have much work to cover in a short amount of time, as there are many components that need to be taken into consideration as your edge infrastructure moves from an idea into deployment and production. We hope that by organizing the topics by deployment stage, this will spark fruitful discussions.  We encourage anyone who has an interest in how to turn edge computing, and that includes — individuals and organizations from open source communities, standards bodies, vendors, architects, and developers — into a thriving reality to join the sessions!

Please visit our etherpad for further session details and don’t forget to register for the event to receive all the latest updates. See you at the PTG!

About Edge Computing Group:

The Edge Computing Group is a working group comprised of architects and engineers across large enterprises, telecoms and technology vendors working to define and advance edge cloud computing. The focus is open infrastructure technologies, not exclusive to OpenStack.

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