Edge computing with Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Scalability: Edge deployments require hundreds of thousands of nodes and clusters to be managed in locations with limited or no IT staff, such as oil rigs, high-speed trains, airplanes, ATMs, and retail point-of-sale terminals. This requires a centralized way to deploy, update, and manage them.

Interoperability: Interoperability within a multi-vendor hardware and software environment is essential for managing and replicating highly complex solutions. 

Consistency: Edge sites should be managed and updated in a consistent and secure way to avoid data breaches and remote system takeovers. Consistency in standardization of hardware and software can help simplify deployment and provide repeatable systems for infrastructure operations teams.

Security: Edge deployments require both physical and digital security to protect data and business. A layered, defense-in-depth security approach takes advantage of the capabilities of each layer in their environment–from physical hardware to applications–as well as the development and operations processes in between.

When organizations standardize their infrastructure on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, they can reduce the complexity and security risks that come with workloads at the edge. They can also lower the cost of overall maintenance, produce shorter innovation cycles, and improve uptime.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux opens up the option to standardize on a full portfolio of capabilities beyond the OS. Orchestrate containers with Red Hat Device Edge or Red Hat OpenShift; automate with Red Hat Ansible® Automation Platform; and explore a variety of management, middleware, and storage options from an ecosystem of technology partners and services, helping you deliver an optimized edge solution. 

An OS that can simplify deployments, operations, workload portability, and reduce complexity is ideal for pushing workloads to the edge. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is built for enterprise workloads requiring long-term stability and security across a broad ecosystem of certified hardware, software, cloud, and service providers.

Using Image Builder, IT teams can quickly create, deploy, and easily maintain custom, edge-optimized OS images over the life of the system. Image Builder is provided by Red Hat Enterprise Linux and contains everything needed to run edge workloads in specific places. These images can be customized for unique edge workloads, helping keep edge deployments consistent, scalable, more secure, and compliant.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux's edge management helps securely manage and scale deployments at the edge, providing control and peace of mind at every stage of an edge system’s life. The benefits of zero-touch provisioning, system health visibility, and quick security remediations are available from a single interface.

OS image updates are staged in the background of every edge device, ensuring workloads run uninterrupted and reducing latency typically associated with manual updating/patching. This remote device update mirroring allows each install to happen during scheduled downtime or when device owners choose to apply them. It’s an approach that can scale across hundreds of thousands of edge devices and improve workload resiliency by always applying a stable update.

With Red Hat Enterprise Linux, edge systems with low bandwidth or limited, intermittent connectivity can maintain uptime and stay secure with delta updates via rpm-ostree. The data-reducing package system only transfers updated bits (known as deltas) for app updates, instead of the entire OS. This reserves app networking resources and increases the overall reliability of edge systems.

Create custom health checks using the greenboot framework that automatically runs during the startup process. These checks make sure apps, services, and programs running on the OS are operating as they should across every edge device. If a health check fails, the OS will revert to the previous state to maintain system uptime. Intelligent rollbacks with Red Hat Enterprise Linux keep systems operational — improving resiliency and reducing the need to send  professionals into the field.

For server-class hardware

Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Distributed Computing Server applies to edge environments that need to run on server-class hardware, at a remote facility, as back-office servers connected to upstream cloud and datacenters or to collaborate with downstream edge devices.

For smaller edge device hardware

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the foundational component of Red Hat Device Edge, which is designed to support smaller edge devices to add lightweight Kubernetes container orchestration based on MicroShift, plus the flexibility of Ansible Automation Platform to your edge devices.