Companies are pursuing digital transformation at an unprecedented rate, often driven by innovation enabled by edge computing. Aware of the limitations of legacy systems and cloud computing, businesses are looking to leverage advanced appliances to mine data, streamline operations, and run complex workloads. in a flexible, fast and flexible way.
The data reflects this story. Recent estimates forecast that there will be 27 billion connected IoT devices by 2025 (IoT Analytics 2022). Demand is being driven by a strong appetite from specific sectors, such as automotive, telecommunications, manufacturing and retail, where optimized supply chains and advanced automation already exist. outstanding impact. Industry 4.0 is no longer just a buzzword; it’s happening right now.
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But while there is a shared vision of its advantages and role in overhauling traditional infrastructure, this consensus does not change the fact that there are significant challenges to overcome.
At the foundation level, businesses are often at very different levels of maturity in their transition to competitive solutions. At our annual Digital SUSECON 2022 conference, we have seen firsthand that complex cases are diverse and that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, solutions had to be tailored to the location of the business, leading to the urgent need to create optimal solutions in a mixed environment involving legacy hardware while applying using Kubernetes.
Challenges of running applications on the edge
As businesses seek to realize their Edge vision in these environments, there are three key barriers that need to be addressed beyond the inherent complexity of packaged workloads.
Scale is the first critical challenge for most customers. The edge environment is much larger than the one introduced in traditional enterprises. For example, looking at the automotive sector, a modern car is a computer in itself: From the engine to the brakes, even the reverse camera – whenever the computer happens, there is a Analytics events take place in the car, instead the data needs to be shared to a central location.
Your car represents a series of advanced equipment. Considering the number of edge devices managed by BMW – not just cars, but also retail and manufacturing locations – the scale is substantial. The same holds true for major retailers like Home Depot, which uses edge to manage thousands of their retail storefronts to streamline operations and applications.
Security is the second challenge. Edge deployment introduces new threat vectors and greatly expands the attack surface area. With systems located outside of the classic data center, they need to be secure from the underlying applications to the operating environment and the workload itself.
Management is the third challenge. If you have thousands of edge devices, how can you quickly configure them all? This can practically be managed from a central location, having one device connected to an edge cluster, allowing for bulk updates without the need for on-site physical intervention. By having a common platform centered on K3s, one can deploy and update the underlying container platform quickly and efficiently. With this, resiliency is often noticed because consistent communication is never guaranteed in edge deployments.
How can businesses regulate security risks?
Security should be an invisible thread that runs through the entire environment. Therefore, it must be included in the entire lifecycle management process.
Resilience has to be built into the edge infrastructure from the start, which means the rollout has to be secure. For it to be secure, it must also be simple to deploy. In fact, if you have three edge nodes at a site and need a fourth, you don’t need a team of IT people involved. It’s about transporting the node (a box) to the location, having someone plug it in place, so that the button is then updated from a central location without any intervention at the site. place.
This is full lifecycle management, with any updates made remotely to that node, connected to other nodes as a cluster. It’s an integral part of navigating the security risks associated with adopting a zero-trust approach. This is a pragmatic approach to reducing risk and dealing with new threat vectors introduced by edge deployments. With the proliferation of devices in edge environments and the omission of traditional verification methods, models that are not trusted by default are becoming mandatory.
Unleash the potential of the edge
If these challenges are met, businesses will be able to truly deploy IoT devices at a scale far beyond traditional infrastructure. This scale can be secured.
We need only look at the industrial IoT sector to see that the opportunities are immense, from predictive maintenance of machines to fast, remote equipment monitoring.
For example, if you are at a lumber mill, there may be a device installed that can predict the life of a saw blade, thereby reducing the number of people that have to manage it as well as increasing its lifespan. of the saw. tongue. Timely analytical input using state-of-the-art instruments is here to save tool costs and improve productivity.
It’s easy to see how this essential part of maintenance can translate to other industries. Whether it’s managing robots in a warehouse, monitoring heavy-duty vehicles, or reading analytics from medical devices. Pursuing an omnichannel strategy and walking technology are two innovations that are beneficial for driving change in the retail sector.
Approaching real-time analytics and mining previously lost data creates further analytical value for a business, particularly in its ability to identify and remove inefficiencies from the supply chain. Edge will be able to bring apps closer to the end user for a significantly enhanced experience. The opportunities offered by edge computing are clear for businesses and customers, but so are the risks if security doesn’t keep pace with the pace of digital transformation.
Addressing challenges of scale and carefully deploying solutions that incorporate both security and resilience into core infrastructure is inevitable if businesses want to succeed in a fast-paced industry. quickly becomes an inevitable journey to the edge.
With more than 21 years in the cloud and related industries, Basil leads product management, marketing, engineering, and media tuning for SUSE’s Edge business unit. Prior to that, he was Vice President of Cloud Native Infrastructure, where he drove the strategy and management of SUSE Rancher’s cloud-native products. Prior to Rancher, Basil led product management, positioning, and security business strategy in Red Hat’s Cloud Platform business unit.
