Homologous Topographies, SUSE Edge Evolves Datacenter-Like Maturity 

The edge is maturing. The compute and analytics structures, processes and actions happening at the edge computing coalface on the internet of things (IoT) must now leave their adolescence behind and work more closely in line with enterprise-grade cloud-native platform technologies.

If the edge were human, it would now be getting a proper haircut, learning to drive and seriously start thinking about getting a real job.

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Luxembourg-headquartered open-source operating system and enterprise software tools company SUSE has aimed to reflect this need with the latest iteration of its edge suite. SUSE Edge 3.1 has been designed to address the “datacenter-to-edge problem” that the company says organizations in retail, manufacturing, healthcare and government verticals are currently struggling with.

What’s the Issue With Edge?

The central issues here preventing these organizations from maximizing the potential of the edge include the lack of a consistent platform between the cloud, enterprise on-premises deployments and the edge.

If lack of consistency sounds like an inconvenience rather than a major network architecture stumbling block, then it shouldn’t i.e. this disconnect means IT teams have a hard time managing the lifecycle of all aspects of edge devices at scale. As the software application development lifecycle (lovingly known as the SDLC inside the trade, but now perhaps becoming the eSDLC) now needs to be edge-first in so many cases, there is also a pressing need for not online lifecycle-related updates, maintenance actions and extensions, but also for datacenter-like security at the edge, which is another key aspect that SUSE has looked to address.

Diverse Distributed Topologies

Keith Basil, general manager of SUSE’s edge business unit says that SUSE Edge 3.1 addresses these challenges by providing a flexible and secure cloud platform that supports a variety of use cases, target hardware platforms and deployment scenarios. Edge 3.1 supports fully automated deployment and lifecycle management of tens of thousands of edge devices in a highly distributed topology.

“Enterprises in retail, manufacturing, healthcare and government verticals are extending their cloud computing capabilities to the far and tiny edge of their networks to reduce latency, process data locally and gain real-time insights by utilizing AI/ML techniques,” said Basil. “For example, by adopting SUSE Edge 3.1 across their edge footprint, a manufacturing enterprise would benefit from improved availability and reliability for sensors and cameras at their manufacturing plants.”

Validated Use Case Designs

While big-picture vendor promises relating to unified controls, seamless integration and so-called single pane of glass management consoles will rarely detail the mechanics within, so how does this new release work? The company says that the SUSE Edge 3.1 solution provides an edge-optimized platform that sports “validated designs” tailored for specifically defined industry use cases. 

Also in the mix here, SUSE says it has provided a management solution that scales to cover the “full edge cloud stack”, meaning a technology component spread that extends from the operating system itself to the applications that run on it. 

Security has to feature here, so checking that box we see SUSE 3.1 provides compliance and security features within to extend value, applying best practices in configuration, delivery and governance. There are also 24 months of long-term support/

“More than a decade of working as a supplier to tier-1 network equipment providers means a mature high-performance edge runtime and a small footprint edge stack with components purposely built for edge computing,” notes SUSE’s Basil and team, in a product launch statement. “Further here, using industry-standard and vendor-neutral APIs for GitOps-based infrastructure and configuration management provides a higher return on investment.”

Homologous Happiness

The edge SDLC isn’t a de facto industry term yet, however, as enterprise software structures now extend to perform more complex in situ analysis out at the edge and seek to do so with reduced latency, secured perimeters, and – perhaps above all within the context of this story – with an ability to appears homologous to the on-premises IT stack, we will start to see a more democratically bridged approach between the datacenter to outward edge zones. 

Will that mean programmers in general start to regard edge as something sexier than uber-geek-level embedded computing? One thing at a time, please people.

SUSE Edge supports both x86-64 and Arm64 systems and is generally available as of October 11, 2024.