Software engineering for edge environments must be performed on, in, and with edge computing tools, platforms and services. It almost seems irrational or crazy that we have to say it out loud, but building the compute edge requires edge technologies.
Software infrastructure specialist Progress thinks it would be folly to suggest any other means.
But how did we get here and what makes the edge so hard to code for, especially if we want to keep the combined workflow culture that is DevOps (development and operations) down to the nodes of blinking sensors that we care about so much? on the western spiral arm of the edge computing galaxy?
Edge DevOps: It’s Complicated
Sundar Subramanian, EVP and CEO of Chef Business at Progress, made his comments on the edge and DevOps at Progress’s annual Progress360 developer conference within the ChefConf tracks, known for its DevOps and DevSecOps capabilities, which are now under the parent umbrella of Progress .
“We’re entering a world where things change quickly, and that leads to complexity,” Subramanian says. ”…As we move from on-premises to the cloud and to the edge… complexity increases because of the number and variety of devices and the breadth of data and application processing tasks on them – all of which makes DevOps systems more complex. ”
TO SEE: 20 Good Habits Network Administrators Need – And 10 Habits To Break (Free PDF) (TechRepublic)
Here again, the complexity factors do not occur in one vector. Every day new devices and smart machines come to the fore. There are new network protocols with 5G to consider, and there are new cloud complexities, stemming from the proven effectiveness and increased use of containers and associated orchestration technologies.
Referring to the use of different operating systems, different compliance restrictions, and the different computing architectures offered by the major cloud service providers (CSPs), this isn’t a time when things seem to be getting easier on the desktop, cloud, or edge for granted.
“As we move new elements of the IT stack to the edge, it all adds complexity in terms of the number of nodes, the number of apps, and the integration tasks ahead of us,” said Subramanian. “Making all of this happen in a way that allows us to successfully move into live working production environments using different kinds of code (some open source, others proprietary) – and all for different [software application] product owners safe is a big challenge.”
Edge-compliant DevOps evolution
The technology proposition Progress makes here is that edge-compliant DevOps has become more complex, so a more complex, or at least a more dedicated and precisely designed DevOps platform and set of competencies should be used for modern IT. The company says it recently surveyed some 600 C-suite executives to try to find the factors driving DevOps change at all levels.
The most important thing the team heard about is the business drivers that drive change. Companies clearly express a desire to be agile, change quickly, switch production lines for both products and services, and deliver and handle the intricacies of supply chain management.
With edge computing in the mix, organizations seem to be looking for new mapping between business and technology factors.
“In this new world of IT, cybersecurity teams are becoming increasingly important,” said Subramanian. “We want security that spans the infrastructure, network data processes, workflows, intellectual property and more.
“With devices in more places than ever before, we need to ask ourselves exactly how we make sure nothing bad happens to these assets.”
From Progress’s perspective, with Chef Business division technologies in the mix, progress will depend on simplifying the complexity of technology. This will help companies achieve a higher level of automation to eliminate human errors caused by manual tasks.
Subramanian sees a variety of different activities that can be automated as part of the application development lifecycle. This can include test automation, build automation, and security automation, as well as automated monitoring and more. All of these IT elements essentially help build a picture of what is now referred to as infrastructure as code.
TO SEE: Don’t hold back your enthusiasm: trends and challenges in edge computing (TechRepublic)
“To strike the right balance between automation and figure out where we want people to be involved in making basic decisions (and important decisions), versus deciding which tasks to manage manually is a big part of what we think about when we’re talking about a human free zone,” Subramanian clarified.
Know your edge topology first
DevOps is a more complex management challenge in a world with edge computing in it. Given the evolution of technologies within the context of edge computing, what should software architects and developers remember most in the future?
“Nowadays, when we talk about building software for edge environments, most of all we have to think about the type of edge topology we work with, in a given environment,” said Prashanth Nanjundappa, VP of Product Management for the Chef product line at Progress . “It could be edge environments with fragmented device types with a high degree of connectivity, which they need because they’re individually managed – and vice versa, we have decentralized edge devices.”
In the case of decentralized edge devices, Nanjundappa explains this topology as scenarios where the device itself can be managed by partners, franchises or other third parties. And in these environments, of course, there is less consistency of network connectivity with the edge device itself.
“Knowing the difference between the two is critical if the edge infrastructure management team will be able to accurately identify the architecture ahead and achieve a secure software distribution model that works in a robust way for the long term,” explains. Nanjundappa.
We might reasonably suggest that the finer nuances and idiosyncrasies created by taking DevOps to a new level of edge computing literacy will return at scale to the mother lode of the wider IT stack itself. That high-performance, always-on and at-scale message is central to the Progress message set, so it can be inferred that a level of symbiotic software engineering is also at play here.
As a result, it seems that IT infrastructure and system policy controls may now be more fascinating and attractive than the apps and devices themselves.
