In a few short years, LF Edge, which is an umbrella organization within the constantly expanding Linux Foundation, has made significant strides in addressing challenges associated with edge computing in the real world.
Established in January 2019, LF Edge comprises existing Linux Foundation projects Akraino Edge Stack, EdgeX Foundry, and the Open Glossary of Edge Computing, as well as Project EVE led by ZEDEDA and Home Edge Project led by Samsung Electronics.
As all experts and innovators working in edge computing, connectivity and security understand, succeeding at the edge is a team sport, and with open frameworks, an exciting playground for disrupters who liberate end customers from traditional “closed” software and hardware business models given the fundamental philosophy around the definition of open.
LF Edge is continually enriching an open, interoperable framework for edge computing independent of hardware, silicon, cloud, or operating system, and today announced the project’s maturity as a deployable framework with expanded open source solutions to meet real-world demands.
Industry leaders F5 and VMware have joined the community as Premier members as LF Edge maturation includes new projects, general members, project releases and blueprints that enable deployable solutions.
Additionally, mimik, Platform 9, Teal Communications, and Veea joined the open source edge project umbrella to collaborate on furthering edge computing, even as the LF Edge portfolio expanded with the addition of eKuiper and Project Alvarium to address IoT data analytics and trust fabrics.
Additionally, Linux Foundation welcomed Edge Gallery for open MEC edge computing and announced Akraino and EdgeX Foundry project releases which “enhance commercially adopted, deployable solutions for IoT and edge use cases including 25+ blueprints.”
“Growth within the LF Edge community continues to accelerate, and we are thrilled to welcome even more industry-leading organizations to the community,” said Arpit Joshipura, General Manager, Networking, Edge, and IoT, the Linux Foundation. “This is in line with industry trends as more and more organizations across verticals realize the power of open source at the edge. Our diverse set of new projects and new members works in tandem with the broader LF Edge community to enable real-world edge, IoT, IIoT, and telco solutions.”
F5 is a multi-cloud application security and delivery company that enables its customers—which include the world’s largest enterprises, financial institutions, service providers, and governments—to bring extraordinary digital experiences to life.
“F5 is excited to join the Linux Foundation Edge Board and we look forward to collaborating on an open, interoperable framework that enables industries and individuals to innovate at the edge,” said Geng Lin, executive vice president and CTO at F5. “Our participation will help accelerate the delivery of an Edge 2.0 platform, a security-first, app-driven approach with unlimited scale that will empower every business to unlock the full potential of the emerging edge.”
VMware is a leading provider of multi-cloud services for all apps, enabling digital innovation with enterprise control. As a trusted foundation to accelerate innovation, VMware software gives businesses the flexibility and choice they need to build the future.
Kaniz Mahdi, vice president of distributed edge, VMware, said, “VMware is helping leading service providers around the world modernize their networks to deliver and monetize next- generation applications. We are working side-by-side with customers and partners to unravel the complexities that come with delivering these apps across a distributed edge. As such, we are excited to join the LF Edge, an organization focused on building an open framework to support edge-native workloads. With virtualization in our DNA and a deep-rooted footprint in the cloud, VMware is uniquely positioned to contribute to this important ambition.”
Bringing an even more diverse perspective to the LF Edge community, new general and associate members include:
- Mimic, which provides a hybrid edge cloud computing application development platform and business enablers for digital transformation
- Platform 9, which enables operations teams to run Kubernetes as a Managed Service on multi-cloud, on-premise or edge at scale
- Teal Communications, the first cloud-native, Credentialing-as-a-Service platform that provides intelligent connectivity and networking solutions to IoT device and network operators
- Veea, an edge communications, compute and security company redefining and simplifying secure edge computing at the Device Edge that improves application responsiveness, reduces the overall solution delivery and bandwidth costs and eliminates central cloud dependency
- Eclipse Foundation, which provides its global community of individuals and organizations with a mature, scalable, and business-friendly environment for open source software collaboration and innovation
“mimik looks forward to collaborating with the innovative ecosystem that comprises the LF Edge. The LF Edge’s community-driven philosophy underpins mimik’s own core values in today’s increasingly hyperconnected world, which presents opportunities to a group of like-minded individuals and partners to collectively contribute to innovation at the edge. The result is a much larger proposition for the entire community to thrive together than one company winning it all.
The opportunities afforded by LF Edge will naturally complement mimik’s eagerness to expand our varied groups of partners and customers that range from large brands to startups. Already, we have started to contribute our learnings and technology while learning from other community members in the ecosystem. mimik strives to edgeifi the world with the LF Edge community of
partners,” said Fay Arjomandi, founder and CEO of mimik and 2020 winner of Edge Woman of the Year.
"Our mission to democratize IoT network access through a dynamic provisioning layer synergizes very well with the LF Edge mission to create an ecosystem built around open standards for edge applications. We couldn't be more excited to join in and contribute to these projects!" - Robert Hamblet, CEO of Teal Communications
“We are thrilled to join the LF Edge community and are eager to be a part of the future of open source at the edge,” said Allen Salmasi, CEO, Veea, Inc. “The combined capabilities of a properly designed hybrid edge-cloud solution integrated with disaggregated elements of 5G network can provide for a distributed Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (“HCI”) that will drive the next revolution in computing and connectivity. We look forward to collaborating with the broader LF Edge community to help make edge computing more secure, simpler to adopt, deploy, use and maintain.”
New Projects
eKuiper and Project Alvarium have joined the growing LF Edge project portfolio while Edge Gallery joins the Linux Foundation. Covering IoT analytics and trust fabrics respectively, eKuiper and Project Alvarium join the nine existing LF Edge projects: (Stage 3) Akraino and EdgeX Foundry; (Stage 2) Project EVE, Fledge, Home Edge, Open Horizon, and State of the Edge; and (Stage 1) Beatyl and Secure Device Onboard (SDO).
Edge Gallery joins the Linux Foundation and will work closely with LF Edge projects. More information about the new projects:
Project Alvarium, with initial code seeded by Dell Technologies, is aimed at building a framework and SDK for trust fabrics that deliver data from devices to applications with measurable confidence. Trust fabrics take a system-level approach by layering trust insertion technologies spanning silicon to cloud and will usher in an entire new era of business models and customer experiences driven by interconnected ecosystems. Initial contributing companies include Dell, the IOTA Foundation, Intel, Arm, VMware and ZEDEDA.
eKuiper, is an edge lightweight IoT data analytics / streaming software implemented by Golang,that can be run on all kinds of resource-constrained edge. It migrates cloud
real-time cloud streaming analytics frameworks such as Apache Spark, Apache Storm and Apache Flink to the edge.
Edge Gallery is an open-source MEC edge computing project initiated by Huawei, carriers, and vertical industry partners. Its purpose is to build a common edge computing platform that meets the “connection + computing” characteristics of the telecom industry, standardize the openness of network capabilities (especially 5G network capabilities), and simplify lifecycle processes such as MEC application development, test, migration, and running.
“We’re excited to welcome Project Alvarium, eKuiper and Edge Gallery to the Linux Foundation project family,” said Jason Shepherd, Board Chair, LF Edge and VP Ecosystem, ZEDEDA. “We look forward to continuing to collaborate across our project portfolio to make edge solutions more accessible, scalable and secure, in addition to enabling entirely new business models.”
Commercial-Ready Project Solutions
Bringing deployable edge blueprints that are globally adopted into commercial solutions and use cases, Akraino delivers fully functional edge solutions across industry sectors and disciplines.
Akraino issued its fifth release (Akraino R5) with three new additional blueprints to address use cases such as smart cities, cloud native multi-tenant, and topology prediction for vehicular networks at the edge. R5 also includes updates to many of its existing 30+ blueprints.
EdgeX Foundry, which focuses on edge and IoT solutions, recently issued the most modern, secure, and production-ready open source IoT framework. It’s second major release, “EdgeX Ireland” or “EdgeX 2.0, it overhauls API sets, removes technical debt, provides more message-based communications, and simplifies and secures interface for adopters and
developers, making the platform significantly easier to use and more reliable. The community is currently working on its next release, “EdgeX Jakarta” or “EdgeX 2.1”, expected to be the first EdgeX release to include LTS (long-term support).
Home Edge will soon issue its next release, “Dewberries.” Dewberries continues to build a solid foundation for Home Edge to grow, with updates to code stabilization, scripting, APIs, data synchronization, and security, among others. Stay tuned for more details on Home Edge Dewberries.
Project EVE has recently launched a developer program that enables developers to explore EVE-OS as a highly flexible and secure foundation for their edge solutions. This enables them to build deep security and orchestration functionality into their solutions from the start. Learn more about the program through the project Wiki.
Community Support for LF Edge Dell Technologies
“Data generated at the edge has the power to help businesses make game changing decisions
that deliver immediate and essential value, but organizations have to be able to trust their data is accurate,” said Steve Todd, Dell Technologies Fellow. “As the edge expands everywhere – from retail stores and manufacturing floors to smart cities and homes – we believe edge solutions must include the ability to measure data confidence. That’s why we’re donating our Data Confidence Fabric code to Project Alvarium, so any business can trust and have confidence in their edge data.”
IBM
"mimik provides a platform-neutral solution for serverless execution at the edge. Open Horizon provides a solution for application and machine learning deployment and lifecycle management. Together, Open Horizon and Mimik provide automated management of serverless applications at scale,” said Joe Pearson, Technical Steering Committee chair, LF Edge and title, IBM. “What makes mimik's solution so special is that their micro-services are based on WASM+WASI, which creates language-agnostic, portable, secure, small, and fast serverless functions. Not only are they containerizable and Docker-compatible, they can run up to 10,000 times faster than
micro-services based on interpreted languages like Python and NodeJS, at speeds approaching compiled C++."
IOTA Foundation
“We welcome Project Alvarium’s extension and integration into the LF Edge portfolio,” said Dominik Schiener, Co-Founder and Chairman of the IOTA Foundation. “The great leaps forward in edge computing constantly push the boundaries of scalability, transaction speed, and security. We are excited to continue leveraging IOTA’s technology for the machine economy applications of tomorrow, together with the LF Edge family.”
About the Linux Foundation
Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation is supported by more than 2,000 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 linuxfoundation.org.
Arti Loftus is an experienced Information Technology specialist with a demonstrated history of working in the research, writing, and editing industry with many published articles under her belt.Edited by
Luke Bellos
