CTOs_Guide_To_MicroClouds
CTOs_Guide_To_MicroClouds
February 2023
Table of content
Introducing MicroClouds 7
2. Addressing constraints 14
Conclusion 19
Resources 19
2
Key takeaways from this whitepaper
• Edge computing will transform almost any industry from manufacturing to
telco, to in-shop customer experiences.
• The edge is the center of everything - the real world - closer to the consumer.
• Cutting costs, taking control and creating higher value are main motivations.
• MicroClouds are small clusters of compute nodes with local storage and secure
networking, optimised for repeatable remote deployments.
3
Understanding edge computing
Gartner estimates that by 2025, 75% of data will be processed outside of the
traditional data center or cloud. This shift means that to stay ahead of the
competition, technical business leaders need to find out what their company
strategy to edge computing is going to be.
This paper will explore the key considerations for enterprises and mobile service
providers to easily deploy and manage the lifecycle of distributed MicroClouds -
bare metal compute clusters of between 3-100 commonly off-the-shelf servers -
to meet not only your initial use-case requirements, but also to easily cope with
future use-cases, without having to retool or redeploy. Additionally, this paper
will guide you to create a winning strategy to help your organisation harness the
power of edge computing.
Terms like ‘edge’ have become unnecessarily overloaded within the infrastructure
space. ‘Edge’ is used to describe everything from embedded-type single-board-
computers and internet-of-things (IoT) devices all the way to large point-of-
presence (PoP) clusters of data center class equipment. To find out what your
edge computing strategy will be, you first need to clearly define your use cases.
Edge computing
As a guiding principle, in their 2021 “Gartner Predicts” report, the expert analysts
advise enterprises to rely on “ecosystems over a single-vendor approach”. This
paper will explore a number of relevant aspects to building an ecosystem of
MicroClouds, tailored to your needs.
MicroClouds
MicroClouds trade the exponential scalability of public and private clouds for
security, privacy, governance, and low-latency of decentralised edge computing
environments. They reproduce the APIs and primitives of the big clouds at the
scale of the edge: tiny clusters replicated over thousands of edge sites.
A MicroCloud strategy helps build an ecosystem of many interconnected systems
over a complex network.
4
Key advantages: business needs
The edge might sound far away, unrelated to everyday operations, yet in reality,
“the edge is the center of everything” [Wenjing Chu, LF Edge, March 2021]. The
edge of the network is where businesses operate, create value, and where users
consume data and services. In their 2021 Market Analysis Report on edge
computing, GVR analysts list industries that would hugely benefit from innovation
in edge computing: “healthcare, transportation, defense, energy, aviation,
manufacturing, mining, oil and gas, natural resources, telecommunications, and
utilities“. In short, any industry that generates and processes lots of data locally
would heavily benefit from edge computing innovations.
The low latency and scalability of edge computing also suits environments
where demand may fluctuate – such as retail stores or medical facilities – and
where disrupting the end-user experience is a critical need.
Privacy, security and governance are key issues for many organisations – more so
for those in regulated industries. The European Gaia-X cloud project gives a good
example of such administrative concerns. Edge computing offers an opportunity
to gain independence from the largest tech providers while maintaining
governance over data.
5
Finally, edge computing architectures provide the local processing power
required to launch competitive cloud applications that are fully automated and
API-driven. For example, computer vision quality control in production lines or
remote telecommunications centers run without a technical expert on-site when
an edge computing architecture is implemented.
Here are the main challenges to consider when adopting an edge computing
strategy, at scale:
#1 Elastic needs
• Will your edge sites need to run different applications over time?
• Do you have a fixed use case or do you have elastic workloads that need scalability in
the underlying hardware as well as the software apps?
#2 Physical access
• Where will your edge nodes be physically located? In an air-cooled unit, a redundant
network data center, at the foot of an antenna on the top of a mountain...? Will
there be onsite IT technicians?
• Do you need high availability for all your workloads and data, or is keeping
hardware, maintenance and energy costs down a priority?
6
#3 Organisational fit
Edge deployments won’t replace all the past investments in cloud and private
data centers. An edge computing architecture needs to interface with this
existing infrastructure – whether that is public and private clouds or bare metal.
Because existing infrastructure, practices and policies are mostly centralised,
decentralised compute solutions with centralised management are much easier
to integrate. Similarly, open and standard APIs are required to match the
existing infrastructure.
• What is your deployment strategy? What rules will decide what workload runs where
and when? What services do you need to connect?
• What are your edge interfaces and types of connection (e.g. SCADA, EtherCAT,
Bluetooth and WiFi) and are they secure?
#4 Future-proofing
Being reactive to change in workloads or sizing needs is one thing (read #1),
future-proofing for evolutions in technology is another. Software and hardware
are constantly changing, and companies need to account for that. It is important
to avoid getting locked into a specific technology or vendor. An abstraction layer
can help mitigate the risks linked to re-tooling or migrating technology. As
opposed to IoT applications, a MicroCloud needs to be hardware agnostic and
each layer with standard APIs protect your applications from external changes.
• What happens if the tooling you put in place today does not match the business need
in the future?
• Does the technology you have committed to have a solid engineering team behind it
and is it backed by long-term investment?
Introducing MicroClouds
7
A MicroCloud is a new class of infrastructure for on-demand computing at the
edge. MicroClouds differ from IoT which uses thousands of single machines or
sensors to gather data, yet does not perform computing tasks. Instead, a
MicroCloud reuses proven cloud primitives but with the unattended, autonomous
and clustering features that resolve typical edge computing challenges.
8
What are the technical features of a MicroCloud?
� Underlay - physical
Networking layer � Overlay - logical
� Reliable
Storage layer � Scalable
� Easy to configure and use
� Scalable
� Clustering
Virtualization layer � Lightweight
� APIs
� Fully-automated
Device orchestration / � Minimal overheads
provisioning layer � API-driven
How do MicroClouds, these tiny localised clouds, solve the edge challenges?
Needs evolve quickly and applications change. The MicroCloud stack is made for
flexibility and scalability. It’s a stack of modular components, each providing a
specialised function: networking, storage, virtual machines, containers and
orchestration. Swapping, adding or removing a component from the stack is an
easily automated day-2 operation.
The layered approach transforms the scaling issue into a highly customisable
parameter. Scaling can happen at every level: bare metal, virtual machines and
containers. On one hand, the middle layer of virtualisation, using virtual machines
and/or linux containers, makes it easy to scale micro kubernetes clusters up and
down without having to worry about the bare metal configuration. On the other
hand, it enables you to seamlessly add or remove physical nodes to the
MicroCloud site without impacting container workloads. All operations can be
fully automated using the right software.
9
#2 Full automation
When designing your MicroCloud strategy and selecting the software for each
component of the stack, you must keep two goals in mind:
A key constraint with edge computing is the often-restricted physical access to the
MicroCloud locations and the high cost of having technical staff on-site. Without
automated provisioning and updates, the promise of edge computing could not
become a viable and a scalable reality. The MicroCloud approach is built to enable
full automation with low-touch components and a composable architecture.
Since edge computing is the computing of the real - physical - world, the ‘edge’
will mean different things to different businesses. For this reason, the right
solution needs to be flexible, work with common APIs you are already using and
scale on demand. From the public clouds to remote devices located at the edge,
there is a wide spectrum of sizes and solutions. To be successful, an edge
deployment needs to be ‘composable’ — designed as a modular stack, preferably
based on non-proprietary solutions.
The MicroCloud approach was developed with open and standard APIs in mind,
aiming to fit existing enterprises infrastructure, practices and policies.
#4 Abstraction layer
10
Which use cases do MicroClouds enable?
Instead of developing applications for every possible technology platform and
device, with an open source abstraction layer you can develop an application just
once and make it available everywhere. The MicroCloud stack is a powerful
abstraction layer to superset any edge hardware with cloud-native APIs. Any
cloud application can then be scaled to the edge.
As shown in the previous section, the technical advantages are clear. However,
building the business case for MicroClouds will depend on your use cases and the
value of committing to the edge. In particular, areas where innovation is
desperately needed to improve business operations or customer experiences.
There are plenty of use cases out there, but remote locations or places where IT is
harder to manage will clearly benefit the most from MicroClouds.
Telecoms
The mobile sector is possibly one of the most mature sectors for MicroClouds.
The vast amount of information generated every day runs into billions of data
points. Even with highly sophisticated centralised systems, it can take time to
develop and launch new customer services. Those that cannot respond quickly
enough concede the competitive advantage to others. With MicroClouds, telcos
can use the data gathered locally to offer customers new services and promotions
in near real-time. Combined with 5G, there is an opportunity to enable a whole
set of edge applications that would not have been possible without hyper-low
latency and high bandwidth.
Manufacturing
Retail
The industry is faced with the ‘innovate or die’ inflection point. While some
functions, like R&D, may continue to take place centrally, much of the innovation
required needs to be close to the customer. Amazon Go is a good example. This
retail concept relies on sensors, computer vision and deep learning to track
people and goods in stores. As a result, customers can simply walk in, pick the
products they want and walk out. No tills, no cards, no queues. This requires
MicroCloud low latency and 100% uptime, as well privacy and governance.
11
Healthcare
Hospitals depend on accurate and timely patient data to make potentially life-
saving decisions. If a central site goes down or the connection is lost to a public
cloud due to a power outage then it can cause serious issues. MicroClouds with
hyper-low latency and high availability ensure that there is no disruption to clinical
workflows. Data is not only quickly and easily available to clinicians but also
individual sites can perform their own advanced population health analytics on-site
to shape their community services. Being able to process medical data on-site and
carefully select what is being sent over the network will guarantee privacy.
Utilities
The list of industries that could benefit from MicroClouds at the edge is endless
— from Agriculture to Education to Gaming. While examples are useful to
understand the principles of the MicroCloud, each use case will be unique. Once
the use case gets clearer, it becomes critical to ask the right questions and to start
creating a winning edge strategy.
12
MicroClouds for the edge
13
Checklist for a winning edge strategy
The decisions you make at the beginning of your edge computing journey will
influence the outcome for your organisation for years to come. When drafting
your own edge strategy, there are three core areas to consider.
2. Addressing constraints
Did you make sure to get all your open source technology from a trusted
vendor invested in the long-term?
Following these strategic principles will help ensure that the decisions you take
now about edge computing actually add value to your organisation. Instead of
overcommitting to a single form of technology, establishing MicroClouds with an
open source abstraction layer will give you more freedom in the future.
14
Adopting open source MicroClouds
Ubuntu Server
Canonical
Ubuntu Server
Canonical
Ubuntu Server
of cloud computing or
Ubuntu Core
or
Ubuntu Core
or
Ubuntu Core
- Free software makes training more accessible
and cost-effective
• Same features and benefits of central clouds Canonical’s approach to MicroClouds for the edge is
- Open technologies and standards remove 100% based on open source software, with the
vendor lock-in ability to provide on the entire stack up to 10-year
- CNCF open source projects are a guarantee security maintenance with long-term supported (LTS)
of quality and sustainability versions and a commercial 24/7 enterprise support
- Central clouds are based on open with competitive response times. Additionally, as a
source technologies trusted open source partner, Canonical would guide
you through your first site installation and the steps
• Future-proof and secure to fully automate further deployments.
- Open source blends components based on
preferred tech and in-house skills Canonical’s MicroClouds are - by default - made of
- Security can be improved with reliance on a three open source components: . These
recognised open source vendor components have been selected for their
- Control over data privacy and governance are lightweight, low-touch, and self-healing capabilities.
retained by your organisation MicroClouds can be deployed on both standard
Ubuntu Server, as well as Ubuntu Core for an even
Open source MicroClouds backed by commercial more lightweight solution. The Ubuntu operating
support enable enterprises to be confident with system ensures a unified experience and consistent
their edge strategy, in the long run. quality throughout the entire stack, from Ubuntu
hosts to Ubuntu LTS containers.
15
Default MicroCloud components
LXD Ceph
Other
LXD CLI Juju Ansible OpenNebula
restful apps
MicroClouds require API-driven components that To conform with the simplicity and automation
can be fully controlled and automated remotely. The aspects of MicroClouds, Canonical utilses MicroCeph
core of LXD is a privileged daemon which exposes a - snap-based, lightweight way of deploying a
REST API over a local unix socket as well as over the Ceph cluster.
network (if enabled).
16
OVN Automated deployment
17
Optional MicroCloud components
MAAS MicroK8s
Public clouds Private Cloud Small private cloud Tiny private cloud IoT
18
Conclusion
MicroClouds are the culmination of advances in cloud computing technologies
and hardware improvements in terms of cost, size, and reliability. They are
localised, tiny versions of cloud platforms, easily replicable at scale. An ecosystem
of MicroClouds is a powerful strategy to trade some of the public and private
clouds’ elasticity for the security, privacy, governance, and low latency needed by
edge applications.
A wide range of sectors and activities will benefit from MicroClouds: optimising the
existing facilities, creating new customer experiences, or even disrupting an entire
industry. From R&D, using the infinite flexibility and advanced services of public
clouds, to production applications running on MicroClouds next to the consumer
to make their journey a seamless experience. The advantages across all of these
cases are that MicroClouds can reuse known APIs to enable the standardisation of
applications while maintaining flexibility and industry-specific optimisations.
For many organisations, edge computing (and MicroClouds) will be new. Open
source can be a concern if there is no one monitoring it for vulnerabilities.
Canonical’s MicroCloud stack comes with enterprise support delivered long-term,
enabling you to achieve innovation at the edge while improving security and
governance through a trusted provider.
Resources
• microcloud.is • microk8s.io/
• ubuntu.com/edge • ubuntu.com/telco
• ubuntu.com/lxd • ubuntu.com/contact-us
• ubuntu.com/ceph • ubuntu.com/engage/introduction-to-micro-clouds
• maas.io/ • ubuntu.com/engage/edge-infrastructure
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