3 ms·

Neat. How would this be used in edge infrastructure? And more broadly, what exactly is "edge infrastructure"?

zamadatix 5y ago
Cynically "edge" is the way to say "not everything actually makes sense to run in the cloud but we can't go back on the marketing push that on prem infrastructure is a fossil so we'll call it edge". Or at least that's what it's meant at the last couple of companies I've worked for/with that were convinced they were going to "move everything to the cloud" despite the cries that the goal should be "move most things to the cloud" at the start. The marketing headline that tends to go with it is "edge is where the users are" but really it's come to mean any place you have non cloud infrastructure closer to the user than the internet (i.e. likely every place you have non cloud infrastructure). Less cynically some try to use it as a differentiator for running cloud services dispersed as close to users as possible for performance reasons vs running cloud services in centralized locations to reap the benefits of hyper scaling. Leaving "on premise infrastructure" to mean "legacy infrastructure" instead of allowing the term to follow any changes in the way that on premise infrastructure is run over time.
- intrasight 5y ago
  I'd never considered "on premise" to be a type of "edge infrastructure" before, but technically I guess it is. But I'll stick to calling it "on premise" - because it's not "on premise" in order to have cloud services close to the user. It just hasn't yet migrated to the cloud. So keeping with the "cloud but close to user", where would this or any similar device play a role in edge infrastructure? Don't cloud/edge providers use the same hardware for both? Nobody is going to use this in production, and I don't see a role for testing either.
  - zamadatix 5y ago
    It's a shitty choice for Edge device for sure but it's still an edge device. Just like it's a shitty Linux computer but still a computer. "Edge" is about where not what just like whether something is a "cloud" doesn't change based on if a Pi is used or not.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Cynically "edge" is the way to say "not everything actually makes sense to run in the cloud but we can't go back on the marketing push that on prem infrastructure is a fossil so we'll call it edge". “Edge” is (mostly) also cloud, but with stronger guarantees of ntopological proximity to users than general-purpose cloud regions provide. On-prem is, well, on-prem, not generally referred to as “edge”.
c_o_n_v_e_x 5y ago
While not exactly the same, Chic-fila in the US runs k8s clusters on Intel NUCs in their restaurants. Generally, the idea is that you could deploy something like this across a large number of sites (at scale). It's reasonably cheap hardware. When paired with multiple nodes & K3s/k8s, you get HA. Installation and set-up is easy which are HUGE factors when installing equipment across a large number of sites. The system must be easy enough for a tech to go to site, plug the equipment in, and leave. Everything else is handled automatically and or remotely so as to avoid technician call-outs to site.

Cynically "edge" is the way to say "not everything actually makes sense to run in the cloud but we can't go back on the marketing push that on prem infrastructure is a fossil so we'll call it edge". Or at least that's what it's meant at the last couple of companies I've worked for/with that were convinced they were going to "move everything to the cloud" despite the cries that the goal should be "move most things to the cloud" at the start. The marketing headline that tends to go with it is "edge is where the users are" but really it's come to mean any place you have non cloud infrastructure closer to the user than the internet (i.e. likely every place you have non cloud infrastructure). Less cynically some try to use it as a differentiator for running cloud services dispersed as close to users as possible for performance reasons vs running cloud services in centralized locations to reap the benefits of hyper scaling. Leaving "on premise infrastructure" to mean "legacy infrastructure" instead of allowing the term to follow any changes in the way that on premise infrastructure is run over time.

intrasight 5y ago
I'd never considered "on premise" to be a type of "edge infrastructure" before, but technically I guess it is. But I'll stick to calling it "on premise" - because it's not "on premise" in order to have cloud services close to the user. It just hasn't yet migrated to the cloud. So keeping with the "cloud but close to user", where would this or any similar device play a role in edge infrastructure? Don't cloud/edge providers use the same hardware for both? Nobody is going to use this in production, and I don't see a role for testing either.
- zamadatix 5y ago
  It's a shitty choice for Edge device for sure but it's still an edge device. Just like it's a shitty Linux computer but still a computer. "Edge" is about where not what just like whether something is a "cloud" doesn't change based on if a Pi is used or not.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Cynically "edge" is the way to say "not everything actually makes sense to run in the cloud but we can't go back on the marketing push that on prem infrastructure is a fossil so we'll call it edge". “Edge” is (mostly) also cloud, but with stronger guarantees of ntopological proximity to users than general-purpose cloud regions provide. On-prem is, well, on-prem, not generally referred to as “edge”.

c_o_n_v_e_x 5y ago

While not exactly the same, Chic-fila in the US runs k8s clusters on Intel NUCs in their restaurants. Generally, the idea is that you could deploy something like this across a large number of sites (at scale). It's reasonably cheap hardware. When paired with multiple nodes & K3s/k8s, you get HA. Installation and set-up is easy which are HUGE factors when installing equipment across a large number of sites. The system must be easy enough for a tech to go to site, plug the equipment in, and leave. Everything else is handled automatically and or remotely so as to avoid technician call-outs to site.