Over 100 edge locations planned by 2020; Vapor IO on track to be the largest provider of interconnected edge data center facilities, coast-to-coast

AUSTIN, Texas – September 5, 2018 – Vapor IO, developers of the first fully-integrated hardware and software solutions for edge computing, today announced a Series C funding round led by private equity firm Berkshire Partners, with participation from current investor Crown Castle. The new investment will be used to officially launch the company’s groundbreaking Kinetic Edge colocation and interconnection services, while rapidly expanding its footprint of edge data centers.

The Kinetic Edge platform offers a new category of colocation built around infrastructure-side edge computing at the intersection of the wireless and wireline networks. By deploying micro data centers at the base of cell towers and in nearby wireless aggregation hubs, Vapor IO expects to be the largest provider of edge data center colocation services integrated directly into the wireless infrastructure.

“As the concept of edge computing has gone from niche technology to mainstream trend, we have methodically laid the foundation for infrastructure-side edge computing,” said Cole Crawford, founder and CEO of Vapor IO. “Vapor IO is building the largest footprint of interconnected edge data centers and we are rolling out at an accelerated pace. We’re thrilled to welcome Berkshire Partners as a lead investor and to have the continued support of Crown Castle. This will help establish Vapor IO’s leadership in the market and offer unprecedented value and performance to our customers.”

The Kinetic Edge
Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge enables carriers, cloud providers, CDNs, web scale companies and other innovative enterprises to place IT equipment (compute, storage, and networking) in Kinetic Edge locations—one hop from the existing 4G LTE and emerging 5G wireless networks.

“Vapor IO is a leader in edge computing,” said Beth Hoffman, a managing director at Berkshire Partners. “With premier technology, increasing mobile edge demand and a large market opportunity, Vapor IO is poised for impressive growth. We look forward to partnering with the company’s exceptional management team to deliver scalable mobile edge infrastructure and to having the opportunity to work alongside Crown Castle again.”

Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge architecture will create city-sized logical data centers using high-speed fiber and both open and proprietary software. By combining multiple micro data centers, the Kinetic Edge can offer infrastructure that positions compute and storage extremely close to users while also spanning a geographic region. With Kinetic Edge, Vapor IO is first-to-market with a comprehensive package of edge colocation, interconnection and networking services.

Vapor IO will leverage its partnership with Crown Castle, as well as utilize its award-winning technologies—the Vapor Chamber, Vapor Edge Module and the Synse open source telemetry system—to build and operate the nation’s largest network of edge data centers.

Colocation on the Kinetic Edge
Vapor IO’s primary offering will be providing Kinetic Edge product bundles that include:

• • Colocation: With rollout plans that include all major US cities, Vapor IO will offer customers edge computing colocation services that extends to all major metropolitan regions. Multiple sites in any one Kinetic Edge city can be treated as a single, logical data center than spans the entire metropolitan region.
  • Interconnection: Edge meet-me rooms and interconnection services provide high-speed access to last-mile networks, regional data centers, metropolitan aggregation points and peering centers, as well as public cloud and private data centers.
  • Software-Defined Networking: Using the web-based Vapor Edge Portal or secure APIs, Vapor IO customers can configure virtual private networks to create their own unique edge computing topology including Kinetic Edge data centers as well as private and colocation facilities—making it possible to treat all of a customer’s IT equipment in a region as if it were all in the same building.
• Highly-Secure Lights Out Multi-Tenant Facilities: The Kinetic Edge utilizes Vapor IO’s patent-protected enclosure systems, which include the Vapor Chamber and the Vapor Edge Module. Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge is designed with multiple layers of physical and logical isolation to provide customers with a highly secure environment for their equipment.
• Remote Operation and APIs: Vapor IO’s data centers at the Kinetic Edge are designed for remote operation via the web-based Vapor Edge Portal as well as via APIs provided by Vapor IO, including those offered by the Synse open source telemetry system running in each location.

Rollout Plans
Vapor IO has deployed multiple Kinetic Edge data centers in Chicago, IL with plans to have 13 sites underway by the end of 2018, nearly 50 by the end of 2019 and over 100 by the end of 2020, providing coast-to-coast coverage. Specific cities and more detailed rollout plans will be announced later this year.

Continued Partnership with Crown Castle
Vapor IO has expanded its partnership with Crown Castle, the nation’s largest provider of communications infrastructure. The partner-driven edge colocation business that originally operated under the code name “Project Volutus” will now be offered commercially under the Vapor IO Kinetic Edge brand, but will continue to leverage Crown Castle’s assets, including its tower real estate and metro fiber.

“The exponential growth in mobile data and the development of new applications that require high speed data networks with low latency make this an exciting time to be in the shared communications infrastructure business,” said Phil Kelley, senior vice president of Corporate Development and Strategy for Crown Castle. “Vapor IO is a leader in edge computing and their solution provides edge colocation with the most dense compute per square foot, which optimizes the use of the valuable land under our towers. When you combine our distributed real estate and high capacity fiber connectivity with Vapor IO’s capabilities, Crown Castle is uniquely positioned to enable edge computing.”

Notes
J.P. Morgan Securities LLC was retained by Vapor IO as an adviser on the transaction.

Resources

• Twitter
• Blog
• LinkedIn
• Synse
• Kinetic Edge video
• State of the Edge 2018 Report
• Open Glossary of Edge Computing

 

About Vapor IO
Vapor IO is developing the largest nationwide edge colocation and interconnection platform at the edge of the wireless network. Serving the world’s largest wireless carriers, cloud providers, web-scale companies and other innovative enterprises, the company’s Kinetic Edge combines multi-tenant colocation with software-defined interconnection and high-speed networking. The Kinetic Edge delivers the most flexible, highly-distributed edge infrastructure at the edge of the wireless network. The company has deployed its Kinetic Edge in Chicago, IL and has plans to have projects underway in the top 20 markets with 100+ sites by 2020.

About Berkshire Partners
Berkshire Partners, a Boston-based investment firm, has raised nine private equity funds with more than $16 billion in aggregate capital and has made over 125 investments in primarily middle market companies since its founding in 1986. The firm is currently investing Berkshire Fund IX, a $5.5 billion fund raised in 2016. The firm seeks to invest $50 million to $500 million of capital in each portfolio company. Berkshire has developed specific industry experience in several areas including consumer products and retail, communications, business services, industrials and healthcare.  Berkshire has a strong history of partnering with management teams to grow the companies in which it invests with the goal of consistently achieving superior investment returns. Previous investments in the communications sector have included Crown Castle, Telx and Lightower. For additional information, visit www.berkshirepartners.com.

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Media contact:

Eleni Laughlin
Mindshare PR
[email protected](510) 406-0798

Vapor IO, Packet, and the Linux Foundation Collaborate on “Open Glossary of Edge Computing”

Co-Creators of the State of the Edge 2018 report donate their open source glossary to The Linux Foundation, building a community around key terminology for the edge ecosystem.

Austin, Texas – June 27, 2018 – Vapor IO,

the leading provider of edge computing infrastructure and colocation, along with Packet, the leading bare metal cloud for developers, have published the first Open Glossary of Edge Computing, and are collaborating with The Linux Foundation to create an open source project around it. Similar to Wikipedia, the Open Glossary of Edge Computing is a freely-licensed glossary, written collaboratively by the people who use it. Edge computing will play a substantial role in shaping the next-generation internet, and shared definitions will reduce confusion and accelerate innovation. By combining many viewpoints in a transparent process, the Open Glossary of Edge Computing project seeks to capture the fast-changing lexicon of edge computing, presenting it in a form usable by journalists, analysts, vendors and practitioners.

“The Linux Foundation is at the forefront of open source efforts in edge computing as exemplified by the industry-leading Akraino Edge Stack, CORD and EdgeX Foundry projects,” said Arpit Joshipura, General Manager, Networking, The Linux Foundation. “Adding the Open Glossary of Edge Computing to our existing portfolio of open source frameworks helps us advance the industry and create a shared vocabulary around which innovation can happen. By providing a home and governance structure at The Linux Foundation, we can enable a community-driven process for evolving the Open Glossary of Edge Computing.”

The glossary emerged as a sibling project to the world’s first State of the Edge Report, also announced today. Vapor IO and Packet have contributed the Open Glossary of Edge Computing under the liberal and flexible Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 license. The project encourages individuals and organizations with an interest in edge computing to publish and incorporate the glossary into their own works. The project also welcomes contributors from everywhere, providing a GitHub repository where individuals can join the community, present ideas, participate in discussions, and offer specific suggestions and improvements to the glossary.

“Edge computing now has its Rosetta Stone,” said Matt Trifiro, CMO of Vapor IO and a lead contributor to the the glossary. “We originally created the glossary for our internal use, but as we shared it for review, we were asked to make it a community resource. We chose The Linux Foundation as a long-term home for the project because they provide world-class support and have a proven track of organizing successful communities and attracting top-tier open source projects.”

State of the Edge Research Report

Also announced today is the State of Edge collaboration and their inaugural State of the Edge 2018 report. This year’s free report is available on the StateoftheEdge.com website. The State of the Edge report and platform has been created by a broad alliance of edge computing stakeholders, including Vapor IO, Packet, Ericsson UDM, Arm Holdings, and Rafay Systems. A current version of the Open Glossary of Edge Computing has been incorporated into the report.

Resources

• State of the Edge 2018 Report
• Open Glossary of Edge Computing
  • GitHub Repo
• @StateoftheEdge (State of the Edge on Twitter)
• Blog post on Linux Foundation website

About Vapor IO

Vapor IO is building the cloud of the future by delivering a suite of hardware and software for edge computing and operating the fastest-growing edge colocation business known as Project Volutus. The company’s technology enables highly-distributed micro data centers to be embedded in the wireless and wireline infrastructure, colocated with the last mile or Radio Access Network (RAN), and meshed together with software and high-speed fiber as part of the company’s Kinetic Edge, a technical architecture for city-scale edge computing. For additional information, please visit www.vapor.io.

About Packet

Packet is the leading bare metal cloud for developers. Its proprietary technology automates physical servers and networks without the use of virtualization or multi-tenancy – powering over 60k deployments each month across four “core” and 16 “edge” data centers. Committed to automating infrastructure no matter what it is or where it lives, Packet also provides its infrastructure automation solution via on premise and private deployment models. Learn more at www.packet.net.

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and industry adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

# # #

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

 

Media contacts:
Eleni Laughlin
Mindshare PR
[email protected]
(510) 406-0798

Kristi Tan
The Linux Foundation
[email protected]

Vapor IO, Packet, Ericsson UDN, Arm, and Rafay Systems collaborate with Structure Research and Edge Research Group to publish inaugural State of the Edge report

Austin, Texas – June 27, 2018 – A broad group of edge computing stakeholders, including Vapor IO, Packet, Ericsson UDN, Arm and Rafay Systems, have joined forces to bring clarity and research to the field of edge computing. Produced with help from Structure Research and Edge Research Group, the State of the Edge 2018 report documents contemporary knowledge in the field of edge computing and is freely available at StateoftheEdge.com.

The group also announced two related initiatives: the Open Glossary of Edge Computing and an Edge Computing Landscape. The State of the Edge projects are ongoing efforts and the collaborators are inviting the community at large to contribute to these resources, creating a participatory platform for ongoing research.

“As the industry shifts towards IoT, self-driving vehicles, augmented reality, smart cities and numerous real-time applications, we see high-performance compute, storage and network resources rapidly moving as close to the end user and devices as possible—to the edge of the last mile network,” said Philbert Shih, Managing Director at Structure Research. “The edge ecosystem is large and fast-moving, and the State of the Edge collaboration provides a critical forum for stakeholders to openly work together on terminology and shared research, thereby pushing the industry forward.”

State of the Edge Report 2018

The inaugural State of the Edge report chronicles the emergence of edge computing and documents the impact on developers, technology providers, telecom operators, ISPs, and end users, among others. The report assesses the state of edge computing today, illustrates practical architectures for its deployment, and provides guidance on where this innovative collection of technologies is heading in the near future. The report also endeavors to explain the role edge computing plays in the future of cloud computing, casting it in the context of complementary approaches such as fog computing and public cloud.

Industry analysts Jim Davis (Edge Research Group) and Philbert Shih (Structure Research) produced the report with help from Packet, Vapor IO, Rafay Systems, Ericsson UDN, and Arm. The State of the Edge 2018 report can be viewed and downloaded here. For more information, please visit stateoftheedge.com.

Glossary and Landscape

Also announced today is the Open Glossary of Edge Computing, a community-driven lexicon of essential terms in the edge computing ecosystem. The Open Glossary of Edge Computing presents a framework for organizing shared language to assist in more precise discussions around edge computing. Readers can view a formatted version of the Glossary here as well as contribute to the project via a GitHub repository. For more information, see the Open Glossary of Edge Computing press release.

The State of the Edge collaborators have also published the first edition of the Edge Computing Landscape, an open source database and interactive landscape visualization of vendors, open source projects, foundations and standards groups that intersect or influence the edge computing market. Readers can view the Edge Computing Landscape on the State of the Edge website, as well as visit the GitHub repository to submit pull requests for edits and additions.

Supporting Resources

• State of the Edge Website and Report
• Open Glossary of Edge Computing
  • Press release
  • Github repo
• Edge Computing Landscape
  • Github repo
• @StateOfTheEdge Twitter Account
• Public Slack Channel

About Vapor IO

Vapor IO is building the cloud of the future by delivering a suite of hardware and software for edge computing and operating the fastest-growing edge colocation business known as Project Volutus. The company’s technology enables highly-distributed micro data centers to be embedded in the wireless and wireline infrastructure, colocated with the last mile or Radio Access Network (RAN), and meshed together with software and high-speed fiber as part of the company’s Kinetic Edge™, a technical architecture for city-scale edge computing. For additional information, please visit vapor.io and follow the company on Twitter @vaporio.

About Packet

Packet is the leading bare metal cloud for developers. Its proprietary technology automates physical servers and networks without the use of virtualization or multi-tenancy – powering over 60k deployments each month across four “core” and 16 “edge” data centers. Committed to automating infrastructure no matter what it is or where it lives, Packet also provides its infrastructure automation solution via on-premise and private deployment models. Learn more at www.packet.net.

About Arm

Arm technology is at the heart of a computing and connectivity revolution that is transforming the way people live and businesses operate. Our advanced, energy-efficient processor designs have enabled intelligent computing in more than 125 billion chips. Over 70% of the world’s population are using Arm technology, which is securely powering products from the sensor to the smartphone to the supercomputer. This technology combined with our IoT software and device management platform enables customers to derive real business value from their connected devices. Together with our 1,000+ technology partners we are at the forefront of designing, securing and managing all areas of compute from the chip to the cloud.

About Ericsson UDN

Launched in 2017, the Ericsson UDN is a live global network built in partnership with Service Providers around the world.  The UDN is architected to help service providers create a global network that is made available to content providers and application providers who need more capacity and better performance for their consumer applications.  We are working on the next set of edge compute applications with our customers and service provider partners to build additional value and unlock to power of edge networks. Please visit us at www.ericssonudn.com

About Rafay Systems

Rafay Systems enables next generation performance improvements for SaaS applications delivered over the Internet. Rafay’s Programmable Edge™ platform equips developers with a disruptive set of tools to automatically deploy performance and geography sensitive applications, or micro-services, closer to endpoints. With presence at the infrastructure edge, Rafay’s platform enables organizations to deliver a new set of experiences to their end customers. For more information, visit www.rafay.co and join the conversation on Twitter @RafaySystemsInc.

About Structure Research

Structure Research is an independent research firm focused on the cloud and data centre infrastructure service provider markets. Based out of Toronto, Structure Research is squarely focused on the mid-tier to enterprise segments with an emphasis on international markets, particularly the Asia-pacific region. The firm provides publication of syndicated and customized research and analysis, strategic consulting, advisory services and public speaking. Clients include service providers, technology vendors supplying service providers and investors. Learn more at www.structureresearch.net.

About Jim Davis/Edge Research Group

Jim Davis is the founder and principal analyst of Edge Research Group, as well as a contributing analyst for Structure Research. He has a track record of providing insights into the technologies and companies that are influencing markets. Prior to founding the Edge Research Group, Jim was a Principal Analyst with 451 Research for 17 years, covering cloud networking and security services, including content delivery networks, interconnection, peering, and cloud exchange services. Learn more at www.edgeresearch.group.

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Media contact:
Eleni Laughlin
Mindshare PR
[email protected]
(510) 406-0798

Supporting Quotes

Vapor IO
“Just as we need shared infrastructure to deploy new capabilities at the edge, we also need shared platforms to organize the ecosystems making it happen. The State of the Edge collaboration provides crisp, relevant research and an open model of collaboration for ongoing work. As a founding member, Vapor IO is committed to innovation and fostering an open dialog in the field of edge computing. We see this as an exciting time to come together as an industry to meet the needs of network operators, cloud providers, developers and end users as edge computing unleashes the next generation internet.” — Cole Crawford, co-founder & CEO, Vapor IO

Packet
“With infrastructure starting to move at software speed, it’s critical that we work together to accelerate the evolution of a robust ecosystem that can meet the complex challenges associated with the massive opportunities of distributed computing.” – Zac Smith, CEO of Packet.”

Ericsson UDN
“Ericsson is an established leader in nearly all layers of the network ecosystem. Our direct investments in technology and the UDN Network speak firmly to our belief in our service provider partners and our confidence in the future capabilities of this new vertical we’re helping to create; the edge cloud. This report is a collective approach of like-minded companies and individuals that will be critical in helping to shape and scale the edge for content providers and applications developers alike.”  — Yves Boudreau, Vice President of Ecosystem Strategy, Ericsson UDN

Arm
“Arm believes in a future powered by a trillion intelligent devices, and we also believe in the strength of a diverse ecosystem to enable those devices. The State of the Edge report is an opportunity for us to activate the deep knowledge of our partners, and to encourage the kind of collaborative innovation that has driven Arm technology into billions of devices over the last 30 years.” — Drew Henry, Vice President and General Manager, Infrastructure Line of Business, Arm.

Rafay Systems
“Application owners intuitively understand the Edge’s potential to greatly improve and enhance their applications’ performance,” said Haseeb Budhani, co-founder, and CEO of Rafay Systems. “Creating an easily consumable set of developer-facing solutions that leverage the Edge to improve application performance requires a technology village, and Rafay Systems is excited to be working with Vapor IO, Packet, Ericsson and Arm Holdings to make this vision a reality.”

Cloud Native Computing Foundation
“The CNCF community sees edge computing as a natural extension of cloud native practices, both on the infrastructure side and device side. We’re thrilled to participate in cross-community collaborations, such as the Open Source Glossary of Edge Computing. Together, we will define the key terminology involved with edge computing, as well as the Kubernetes Edge/IoT Working Group, and welcome all to join us.” — Chris Aniszczyk, CTO and COO of The Cloud Native Computing Foundation.

Real-time system includes new data sources that support autonomous drones, cars and robotics

Austin, Texas – March 27, 2018 – Vapor IO, the leader in edge computing and edge data centers, and Hangar, the world’s first robotics-as-a-system data acquisition platform, today announced plans for a commercial implementation of Hangar’s Autonomous Robotics for Industry on top of Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge™. The implementation consists of Hangar’s Robotics-as-a-System™ (RaaS) platform running on Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge, deployed to Project Volutus edge locations. Hangar’s RaaS platform will utilize Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge sites for safe navigation, connectivity, situational and airspace awareness, drone storage, drone recharging, high-speed data ingest and low latency processing.

“The tens of thousands of autonomous robots being deployed by public and private organizations will require a national edge infrastructure,” said Jeff DeCoux, founder and CEO of Hangar. “As these robotics go to work, they will depend on low-latency services at the edge, including precision navigation, micro-climate decision support, and high speed ingest of data to assure safe and secure deployment. We have been working with Vapor IO for over a year and are confident that the Kinetic Edge will meet these needs now and into the future.”