Edge Cloud: A Pragmatic Approach

to Cloud Decentralization

Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology,

April 18th, 2019

Siavash M. Alamouti
President & CEO
Blind men and an elephant
No way,
No way, it’s
it’s
You’re all
AnEdge
elephant
is theis a sheath of
fog computing wrong, it’s
like
base
a big
station
snake leather
amobile
mouse

No, it’s
No, it’s an
a
tree
IoTstump
hub

Sufi Story… Elephant & Blind Sages by Blanca Marti for Equilibre. From wildequus
what is edge cloud?

Many devices have CPU, memory,

storage, and connectivity.
Moore’s law will continue to make
computing devices more powerful.
All computing devices even mobile
devices can act as cloud servers.

When devices act as cloud servers, an edge cloud is formed.

 Central cloud challenges
• Cost of cloud hosting
• system bandwidth efficiency
• communications latency
• data privacy
• vendor lock-in

data tsunami coming

• 200B connected devices by 2020
• average 1.7MB/s per person by 2020

What is the cost of real estate, infrastructure and energy ?

why edge cloud?

• scales with devices

• is faster
• is cheaper
• is more open
• has better data privacy
• more energy and
bandwidth efficient

Edge cloud can grow to be orders of magnitude larger than central cloud.
the computing architecture pendulum

1960 – 1980 1980 – 1990 1990 – 2005 2005 – 2019 2019 – ?

mainframe PC client/server central cloud edge cloud

centralized decentralized centralized decentralized

from client/server to app/services
without microservice

application
monolithic
client

server
gateway
API
http request/response

with microservice

app μservice 1

gateway
API
http request/response
μservice n

device network cloud core

from centralized to distributed
centralized

app μservice 1

gateway
API
http request/response
μservice n

distributed

μservice 1
μservices
app μservice 1

gateway
μservice n

API
http request/response
μservice n

device network cloud core

final step: from star to hybrid topology

μservice 1

gateway
DEVICE

API
μservice n

CLOUD
CORE

not star, not mesh, hybrid

use cases for edge cloud

edge cloud is an enabler for all of these market segments.

• gaming and eSports • stadiums & events

• health & wellness • energy & smart city
• manufacturing • in-flight experience
• automotive • Internet of Things
• consumer retail • etc…

every central cloud use case can be supported by edge cloud.

edge cloud for the enterprise

“For many companies the cloud journey has just started. Only 20% of
businesses are on their cloud journey. The next 80% is about
unlocking real business value and driving growth. This is the next
chapter of the cloud. It requires shifting business applications to
hybrid private and public cloud offerings.”. Gartner

• enterprises can go directly to edge cloud today

• edge enabled apps can support all enterprise cloud deployment models
• enterprises avoid cloud hosting vendor lock-in
• enterprises can reduce their cloud hosting costs with better performance
• enterprises can add unused compute resources to their clouds
principles of edge cloud

meritocracy
all nodes can
participate but
take different roles
based on
their merit
principles of edge cloud

decentralized I’m Jane’s I’m on the

discovery Smartphone same WiFi as

Jane

nodes discover each

other based on scopes I’m

network 100m away

from

proximity &
account
principles of edge cloud

clustering
based on scopes
network
proximity &
account
principles of edge cloud

microservice μ μ
communication
nodes can act as
servers to other
nodes
μ
principles of edge cloud

collaboration I need 5
Gbytes
I have 200
Gbytes

nodes can
collaborate
& share their I need LTE

resources

I have LTE
principles of edge cloud

I
dynamic
I need
bearer end need a
points signalling end

resource
instantiation
resources are I need nothing

made available
only as needed
principles of edge cloud

independence
nodes can
communicate
regardless of
operating system
network or
location
challenges of edge cloud

device & network

fragmentation
challenges of edge cloud

increased uplink traffic

centralized decentralized
challenges of edge cloud

non-persistent nodes
a pragmatic approach to edge cloud

edgeSDK & edgeBackend enable devices to act

as cloud servers.
edgeSDK
• downloadable SDK for most
central cloud edge cloud
operating systems.
• devices can act as cloud severs to
other devices.
• devices can form clusters and
share resources.

edgeBackend
• backend for global management,
registration, authorization,
authentication and security.
client-to-client communication with central cloud
edge cloud high level architecture

Global Registry /
Signalling Auth Service
Discovery Service
Service (mSS) (mST, mID)
(mDS)
https://request/response
Central Cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP etc. or on premise
cloud deployment )

mDS SEP BEP

Edge nodes can communicate directly or

to and through servers in data centres.

Servers in data centres manage global functions;

the rest can be handled by edge devices.
edge cloud benefits

a larger, faster, cheaper and more private cloud

Improves privacy & security by keeping sensitive data on local devices and
Privacy
eliminating the middleman for transactions.

Reduces hosting & bandwidth costs by leveraging local edge servers rather
Cost
than servers in data centres.

Higher performance by enabling edge servers that are closer to the user
Performance
and providing direct, peer-to-peer communication with servers.

Familiar APIs, development framework, languages and compatibility with

Time-to-Market
container and orchestration tools leads to rapid application development.

Consent based provisioning empowers the user to have more control of

User
their computing resources and data.

User Reduces latency through localized peer-to-peer communication between

devices, micro-services and clusters at the edge.
mimik the cloud to the edge
https://developer.mimik.com
back up
edgeSDK elements
mimik node elements
• net module
– discover, connect, communicate
• API Gateway
– exposes APIs of the node elements
• container manager
– provides Docker like APIs
– remote download and management
of microservices
• webserver
– creates a runtime environment for
microservices
• HTTP request wrapper
– consumable APIs for 3rd party
developers
edge cloud high level architecture

Global Registry /
Signalling Auth Service
Discovery Service
Service (mSS) (mST, mID)
(mDS)

Central Cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP etc. or on premise

cloud deployment )

mDS SEP BEP

Edge nodes can communicate directly or

to and through servers in data centres.
Servers in data centres manage global functions;
the rest can be handled by edge devices.
edge cloud high level architecture

Client Application API Gateway

Global Registry /
Signalling Auth Service
API Gateway http:// request
Discovery Service
μS 3 μS 2 μS 1 (mDS)
Service (mSS) (mST, mID)

http:// response
μS 1
Central Cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP etc. or on premise
cloud deployment )
μS 2 μS : microservice
μS 3

mDS SEP BEP

Client Application

API Gateway Edge nodes can communicate directly or

to and through servers in data centres.
μS 3 μS 2 μS 1

Servers in data centres manage global functions;

the rest can be handled by edge devices.