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Raising the Bar on Edge Computing, ZEDEDA Introduces Industry's First Open Orchestration Solution for the Distributed Edge

By Arti Loftus January 29, 2021

To supplement the cloud with applications spanning IoT, AI network virtualization and security at the edge has driven investors and inventors to establish hundreds of proprietary platforms over the past several years.  This has left end users to sift through a fragmented landscape of choices.

As industrial OEMs and telcos continue to make the shift to becoming “digital service providers” it is essential that they adopt technologies to connect and manage distributed edge assets and support XaaS and consumption-based delivery models.

The myriad companies rolling out solutions for edge infrastructure and orchestration understand the demand as a key enabler for massive digital transformations underway across all major industries. Supporting management and security for edge infrastructure through scalable, centralized orchestration is fundamental to developing new revenue streams and customer experiences across IoT, AI, AR/VR, networking and security. Orchestration is also the linchpin for monetizing 5G investments and we’re seeing increasing partnership between traditional service providers and companies like ZEDEDA to extend services to the distributed edge, both on-premise and in the field. 

We are officially in the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) world, with the value of evolving ecosystems growing. Proprietary orchestration solutions create so confusion and risk and companies investing taking this path will soon find themselves in a “race to the bottom” as open standards projects, including Linux Foundation’s LF Edge portfolio, come together to simplify and scale naturally in a community model.

Solution providers and end users alike benefit from an ecosystem of value-add together with consistent, open infrastructure and open-source collaboration is a key means to this end. ZEDEDA, a leader in orchestration for the distributed edge, today announced the general availability of their open orchestration solution, also bringing together a symphony of ecosystem partners’ solutions to deliver intelligent, reliable, scalable, and secure edge solutions. 

ZEDEDA’s cloud-native solution supports both modern and legacy applications to enable any use case in any industry. The company has been working with customers for over a year in manufacturing, oil and gas, energy and retail, with examples including Rockwell Automation, Invenergy, BOBST, PeopleFlo, and Agora.

ZEDEDA’s cloud-native orchestration solution promises visibility, control. and security for distributed edge computing at scale. By supporting any combination of Docker containers, Kubernetes clusters and virtual machines (VMs) for legacy applications, deployed on any edge computing hardware (e.g. x86, Arm, GPU) and while connecting to any on-prem system or cloud, the open ZEDEDA orchestration solution was built from the ground up for distributed edge use cases in environments such as the factory floor, oil field, utility substations, wind farms, retail stores, supply chains and beyond. 

“The explosion of edge data requires more processing closer to the source, and existing solutions simply do not meet the unique needs for orchestrating apps and hardware outside of physically-secure data centers,” said ZEDEDA’s CEO and founder Said Ouissal. “Our solution enables customers to operationalize secure distributed edge computing at scale and is based on a truly open foundation and backed by the world’s leading open edge ecosystem.”

ZEDEDA’s centralized, subscription-based cloud service works in concert with EVE-OS - a universal, bare-metal Linux-based operating system optimized for distributed edge computing nodes.  The open-source EVE-OS is developed within the Linux Foundation’s LF Edge project, insuring against lock-in and facilitating interoperability across an open ecosystem.

“ZEDEDA’s leadership has helped EVE become an active and important project for edge computing,” said Arpit Joshipura, General Manager of Networking, IoT and Edge at the Linux Foundation. “An open approach to virtualization can help companies address the growth in diverse services and hardware configurations being deployed at the edge. It also provides companies with a more flexible infrastructure, allowing them to secure these services while managing lowering costs.”

At their first annual Transform event last August, the company introduced their Open Edge Ecosystem, with a mission to solve for disparities and evolve standards by bringing market-leading hardware and software providers together with industry experts in verticals to support the unique technological and domain-specific needs of each sector. The cloud-native orchestration solution promises visibility, control and security at scale with “full-stack remote orchestration and observability for any IoT edge computing hardware edge application and with any on-prem system or cloud.”

“The explosion of IoT data requires more processing closer to the source, and existing solutions simply do not meet the unique needs for orchestrating apps and hardware outside of physically-secure data centers,” said ZEDEDA’s CEO and founder Said Ouissal. “Our solution enables customers to operationalize secure IoT edge computing at scale and is based on a truly open foundation and backed by the world’s leading open edge ecosystem.”

By supporting any combination of Docker containers, Kubernetes clusters and virtual machines (VMs) for legacy applications deployed on any edge computing node while connecting to any cloud, the ZEDEDA open platform was purpose-built for edge/OT and leverages EVE-OS from the Linux Foundation’s LF Edge, insuring against lock-in and facilitating interoperability across an open ecosystem.

With a Zero-Trust posture, and Zero-Touch automation capabilities, ZEDEDA said in a statement their platform “simplifies distributed edge operations by enabling customers to deploy and manage compute nodes both on-prem and in the field with no IT expertise required on site.”

“One thing that stands out when developing a POC for an edge implementation is that creating a single system for a trial can be straightforward, but implementing such a system at scale, including enterprise-grade security, orchestration, life cycle management and governance, is a daunting task,” wrote Gartner Research Vice President Bob Gill in the firm’s 2021 Strategic Roadmap for Edge Computing.

The solution includes a built-in app marketplace for on-demand deployment of custom innovations and featured offerings from leading ISVs in ZEDEDA’s growing ecosystem. Available applications include support for data ingestion, AI/ML, networking, and security, together enabling customers to unlock the value of edge data to make real-time decisions, drive operational efficiency and lower costs.

The company’s announcement includes testimonials from an array of global enterprises who have implemented the solution themselves, in addition to software and hardware ecosystem partners.

“Edge computing is key to the future of industrial automation, and ZEDEDA provides an unmatched scalable and secure universal orchestration solution,” said John Zepecki, Vice President, Software and Control at Rockwell Automation. “Their solution unlocks the digital future of the IoT edge across Rockwell's ecosystem of software and hardware partners.”

“To help more of our energy industry customers meet regulatory requirements, increase production efficiency, and improve worker safety, Agora is expanding access to our edge AI and IoT solutions,” said Director of Agora Venture, Sujit Kumar. “Leveraging ZEDEDA’s unique approach to orchestrating a wide range of apps (ours and our partners’), is making deployment of edge computing platforms easier.”    

“Video surveillance integrators typically lack remote management of customer infrastructure because IT tools are too complex and cost prohibitive,” said Tom Larson, Director of Safety and Security at MBX. “ZEDEDA makes simplified deployment and remote management of existing video management software a reality, while future-proofing for new innovations.”

“ZEDEDA provides the ideal remote orchestration foundation for HPE’s Edgeline portfolio,” said Bharath Ramesh, Head of Global Product Management for Edge and IoT at HPE. “This simplifies deployment of HPE software innovations like OT Link and apps from our partners.”

“We’re seeing customers commence Kubernetes projects with thousands to tens of thousands of nodes, and this requires a foundation that provides visibility,” said Sheng Liang, President of Engineering and Innovation at SUSE. “ZEDEDA provides a secure foundation for us to extend our supported Kubernetes offer outside of data centers.”

“ZEDEDA’s support for both VMs and containers is valuable for customers,” said Abby Eon, General Manager of PTC Kepware. “This enables deployment of Windows-based ThingWorx Kepware Server alongside containerized applications like Azure IoT Edge on the same device.”

“We are shaping the future of the packaging world where every phase in the production process is connected, digitized and automated,” said Serge Morisod, Head of IoT Lab at BOBST. “ZEDEDA provides a cloud-based solution, orchestrating the software lifecycle of our IoT devices deployed worldwide. This enables frequent and secure updates of new advanced software, which are required for our customers who operate, more than ever, in an agile business.”

“Deploying predictive maintenance apps through ZEDEDA's IoT edge orchestration solution has provided new insights into our wind turbines and is expected to both improve uptime and reduce O&M costs,” said Matthew Conwell, Director, Operations Engineering at Invenergy.

"Our customers and community are deploying Industry 4.0 edge applications for continuous monitoring, predictive maintenance, OEE, and safety using our leading IIoT open-source platform FogLAMP," said Tom Arthur, CEO of Dianomic. "ZEDEDA enables them to securely manage edge operating environments at scale combined with FogLAMP’s tight integration with existing ISA95 operational systems (e.g., OSIsoft, Rockwell, Emerson, ABB, Siemens, AVEVA, SAP, Oracle) and clouds (Google, AWS and Microsoft)."


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 Maurice Nagle
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