Digital Realty, Vapor IO and Hivelocity Demonstrate Core-to-Edge Bare Metal in Atlanta
Integration between Digital Realty’s PlatformDIGITAL® and Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge
enables Hivelocity to support true core-to-edge workloads on its bare metal cloud
SAN FRANCISCO and AUSTIN – November 12, 2020 – Digital Realty (NYSE: DLR), a leading global provider of carrier- and cloud-neutral data center, colocation and interconnection solutions, along with Vapor IO, creators of the Kinetic Edge® platform, the first fully-integrated hardware and software platform for edge colocation, exchange and networking services, and Hivelocity, a leading provider of global bare metal cloud services, announced today availability for developers to deploy core-to-edge workloads on Hivelocity’s bare metal edge cloud, first in Atlanta, but soon in other cities nationwide.
The multi-tier edge deployment in Atlanta builds upon Digital Realty and Vapor IO’s announcement in June, highlighting the integration of Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge architecture with Digital Realty’s Network Hub Solution on PlatformDIGITAL®. Hivelocity, a Digital Realty customer, was able to quickly extend its bare metal cloud to Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge locations due to integration work already completed by Vapor IO and Digital Realty.
“Leveraging the joint solution available through Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge and Digital Realty’s PlatformDIGITAL, we were able to lower costs and get to market quicker,” said Steve Eschweiler, COO of Hivelocity. “By using our existing control plane in Digital Realty’s facilities to orchestrate machines in Vapor IO’s data centers at the infrastructure edge, leveraging the integrated Digital Realty Service Exchange and Kinetic Edge Exchange networks for connectivity, we were able to quickly and cost-effectively extend our bare metal cloud to the infrastructure edge, where last-mile telco networks are aggregated.”
Separately, Hivelocity also announced today it has selected Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge platform nationwide and will bring its bare metal edge cloud to the 36 U.S. cities where Vapor IO is actively deploying.
The collaboration between Vapor IO and Digital Realty combines the cloud proximity, core, regional edge, local edge and interconnection capabilities of PlatformDIGITAL® with the last-mile, low-latency, distributed architecture of the Kinetic Edge network. This combination offers companies like Hivelocity a seamless platform for delivering core-to-edge capabilities that are the basis for many emerging edge use cases.
“We designed this joint solution to combine the data center and networking infrastructure needed to enable cloud-to-core-to-edge applications,” said Cole Crawford, founder and CEO at Vapor IO. “Hivelocity’s ability to simply and effectively extend its bare metal cloud to the edge in Atlanta is a perfect example of how we’re making it easier for joint customers to deliver low-latency edge services that tie back to their regional and core workloads.”
For example, using Hivelocity’s bare metal cloud, a developer can deploy a multi-tier AI-based application, running low-latency inferencing in Vapor IO edge locations while training sophisticated AI models in Digital Realty’s regional edge and core facilities.
“The combination of Vapor’s Kinetic Edge and Digital Realty’s PlatformDIGITAL® is a crucial building-block for core-to-edge workloads, which we are actively supporting in Atlanta, Chicago and Dallas,” said Digital Realty Chief Technology Officer Chris Sharp. “Hivelocity’s ability to tap into this service and create a clear path to highly interconnected true core-to-edge infrastructure for their customers is precisely the simplicity we hope to provide.”
Additional Resources:
- Blog: Bringing Interconnection to the Edge
- Learn more about Digital Realty’s Network Hub solution
- The latest megatrend and its effect on Global 2000 enterprises: Data Gravity
- Join the community at the global and virtual MarketplaceLIVE 2020 event on November 19
About Digital Realty
Digital Realty supports the world’s leading enterprises and service providers by delivering the full spectrum of data center, colocation and interconnection solutions. PlatformDIGITAL®, the company’s global data center platform, provides customers a trusted foundation and proven Pervasive Datacenter Architecture PDx™ solution methodology for scaling digital business and efficiently managing data gravity challenges. Digital Realty’s global data center footprint gives customers access to the connected communities that matter to them with more than 280 facilities in 49 metros across 24 countries on six continents. To learn more about Digital Realty, please visit digitalrealty.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
About Vapor IO
Vapor IO is developing the largest nationwide edge networking, colocation and exchange platform at the edge of the wireless and wireline networks. Serving the world’s largest carriers, operators, cloud providers, web-scale companies and other innovative enterprises, the company’s Kinetic Edge® platform combines multi-tenant colocation with software-defined interconnection and high-speed networking. The Kinetic Edge platform offers the most flexible, highly-distributed infrastructure for delivering modern, low-latency applications, and the company has deployed its Kinetic Edge in Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, and Pittsburgh, furthering its goal to deploy over 100 data centers in 36 U.S. markets over the next two years.[1] Follow@VaporIO on Twitter.
About Hivelocity
Hivelocity is a leading provider of global IaaS and Edge Computing services. With a total of 32 data centers in 26 cities across four continents, Hivelocity has created one of the most geographically diverse and comprehensive edge computing platforms and infrastructures in the world. Hivelocity enables its customers to instantly deploy bare-metal servers across any of its data centers with ease. By leveraging the Hivelocity platform, users can easily manage and scale their edge computing solutions when desired.
Media Inquiries
Marc Musgrove
Digital Realty
(415) 508-2812
[email protected]
Jessica Gomez-Rees
For Vapor IO
(415) 889-7444
[email protected]
Investor Relations
John J. Stewart / Jim Huseby
Digital Realty
(415) 738-6500
[email protected]
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements which are based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially, including statements related to Vapor IO and Hivelocity, including the expected timing and benefits of deployments and collaborations, our expectations regarding the Edge, and PlatformDIGITAL®. For a list and description of such risks and uncertainties, see the reports and other filings by the company with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
[1] Vapor, Kinetic Edge and Kinetic Edge Exchange are trademarks of Vapor IO, all rights reserved.
Hivelocity Selects Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge Platform to Deliver Bare Metal Cloud at the Service Provider Edge in 36 US Cities
Starting in Pittsburgh and Atlanta, Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge platform accelerates time to market, lowers deployment and operating costs, and draws clear path of true edge-to-core for Hivelocity customers
San Francisco, CA – November 12, 2020 – Hivelocity, a leading bare metal cloud provider, today announced it has selected Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge® Platform, the first fully-integrated hardware and software system for edge colocation, exchange and networking services, to extend it’s bare metal cloud to the service provider edge in 36 US cities, starting with successful deployments in Pittsburgh and Atlanta.
“Hivelocity is singularly focused on building out the most comprehensive bare metal cloud for edge computing,” said Richard Nicholas, SVP, Strategy and Corporate Development at Hivelocity. “To do this, we chose to partner with Vapor IO, as it’s Kinetic Edge platform provides the essential citywide infrastructure needed to deploy at the edge. Through this partnership, we’re aggressively rolling out our bare metal edge cloud to the top 36 US cities, making us one of the most comprehensive platforms for deploying edge workloads.”
Accelerating cost-effective deployment of edge applications
Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge platform combines multi-tenant colocation with software-defined interconnection and high-speed networking. The Kinetic Edge platform offers the most flexible, highly-distributed infrastructure for delivering modern, low-latency applications. Through its joint core-to-edge solution with Digital Realty’s PlatformDIGITAL™, Vapor IO enables cloud-to-core-to-edge applications, including 4G & 5G networks, distributed AI, IoT, robotics, autonomous vehicles and augmented reality. By adopting Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge platform, Hivelocity has been able to deploy its bare metal edge cloud more quickly and at much lower cost, bringing infrastructure-as-a-service to these edge applications.
“Hivelocity’s cloud resources on Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge platform dramatically accelerates the deployment of edge-to-core applications and shifts the cost structure from CAPEX to OPEX,” said Cole Crawford, CEO and Founder at Vapor IO. “We’re thrilled to be chosen by Hivelocity to extend it’s bare metal cloud to the edge. The combination of Hivelocity at-scale edge cloud deployments and Vapor IO’s nationwide Kinetic Edge platform will create the essential infrastructure upon which developers can deploy and operate next generation edge applications.”
Real world deployment
One of the first customers to use Hivelocity’s bare metal cloud at the Kinetic Edge is AlefEdge, which is deploying a private wireless mobile edge computing platform nationwide. Last month, AlefEdge and Vapor IO announced their collaboration to roll out AlefEdge’s Software-Defined Mobile Edge (SD-ME), which makes it possible to deploy edge computing services onto private networks, including existing LTE, CBRS and Wi-Fi networks, as well as forthcoming 5G networks. The combination of Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge infrastructure, Hivelocity’s bare metal cloud and Alef Edge’s SD-ME platform provides the critical architecture to support enterprise customers with ‘near-prem’ requirements for ultra-low latency and high bandwidth services.
True edge-to-core
Also announced today, Hivelocity, Vapor IO and Digital Realty have collaborated to showcase an edge-to-core bare metal platform that gives developers the availability to deploy edge-to-core workloads on Hivelocity’s bare metal edge cloud, first in Atlanta, but soon in other cities nationwide. The multi-tier edge deployment in Atlanta builds upon Digital Realty and Vapor IO’s announcement in June, highlighting the integration of PlatformDIGITAL with Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge architecture.
About Hivelocity
Hivelocity provides bare metal cloud and edge computing solutions to thousands of businesses from over 130 countries worldwide. The Hivelocity platform enables users to instantly deploy bare metal cloud servers in 31 edge locations in major cities across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Hivelocity’s robust API further enables customers to programmatically interact with and automate their bare metal cloud infrastructure using code by leveraging tools like Ansible and Terraform.
About Vapor IO
Vapor IO is developing the largest nationwide edge networking, colocation and exchange platform at the edge of the wireless and wireline networks. Serving the world’s largest carriers, operators, cloud providers, web-scale companies and other innovative enterprises, the company’s Kinetic Edge® platform combines multi-tenant colocation with software-defined interconnection and high-speed networking. The Kinetic Edge platform offers the most flexible, highly-distributed infrastructure for delivering modern, low-latency applications, and the company has deployed its Kinetic Edge in Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, and Pittsburgh, furthering its goal to deploy over 100 data centers in 36 U.S. markets over the next two years. Follow @VaporIO on Twitter.
Vapor IO Media Contact
Jessica Gomez-Rees
Publicity IM
[email protected]
415-889-7444
Vapor IO Partners with AlefEdge to Enable Edge Computing Over Private Wireless Networks Nationwide
Partnership unleashes a new wave of “near-prem” mobile services; available first in Pittsburgh and Atlanta
AUSTIN and NEW YORK CITY – September 23, 2020 — Vapor IO, creators of the Kinetic Edge® platform, the first fully-integrated hardware and software platform for edge colocation, exchange and networking services, and AlefEdge, the edge Internet leader who provides a Software-Defined Mobile Edge (SD-ME) platform and APIs for enterprises and developers, today announced that they will be rolling out their SD-ME services on the Kinetic Edge platform, nationwide. The Software Defined Mobile Edge allows enterprises to deploy edge computing on top of private wireless networks, creating a low-cost path to edge-enabled mobile applications, such as factory robotics, IoT, and other use cases that benefit from applications delivered at the edge of the network.
The combined platforms provide a powerful system for deploying edge computing services onto private networks, including existing LTE, CBRS and Wi-Fi networks, as well as forthcoming 5G networks. The combination of Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge infrastructure and Alef Edge’s SD-ME platform provides the critical architecture to support Enterprise customers with ‘near-prem’ requirements that demand ultra-low latency and high bandwidth. Available first in Pittsburgh and Atlanta, SD-ME enables 5G-style immersive and intelligent applications to work over contemporary business environments.
“A programmable mobile Edge has been out of reach for most of today’s enterprises because of the complexity of both deployment and application development,” said Ganesh Sundaram, CEO of AlefEdge. “Placing our service atop Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge platform enables us to quickly deploy nationally and support ‘near prem’ workloads in the top 36 US Markets. Our services allow enterprises to leverage shared resources while maintaining the benefits of on-prem IT without the overhead of on-site management. The Kinetic Edge platform offers the most performant and resilient edge computing network, with a consistent experience across geographies.”
Software-Defined Mobile Edge
The AlefEdge SD-ME platform and APIs provide enterprise customers with the tools they need to digitally transform their businesses with mobile edge computing. This architecture is critical to implementing remote work policies and edge-enabled applications, all while optimizing performance and ensuring security. Alef’s SD-ME platform creates a 5G-like experience without the expense or complexity of 5G, leveraging the enterprise’s existing networks. This platform provides an open programmable toolkit for developers to program the network layer as well as the application layer for anything they want it to do. The programmable layer is easy to use through APIs, connectors and SDKs. Examples of software-based improvements for the enterprise include secure mobile breakout, edge peering, as well as orchestration.
The SD-ME platform allows developers and systems integrators to create edge-enhanced applications as well as edge-native applications. Edge-enhanced applications are current applications that are transformed by the edge, such as enterprise video services, augmented reality training, and enhanced real time bidding for digital advertising for quicker and a more transparent process. Edge-native applications are new applications that are not possible without the edge. Some examples of edge native applications include real time actions for drones through upstream video analytics, wireless robotics and machines for unmanned control, as well as IoT data collection for real time insights and actions.
36 Markets by 2021
In January of this year, Vapor IO announced its series C financing, raising a total of $90 million to build out its Kinetic Edge platform in 36 U.S. markets by the end of 2021. The first 36 markets to feature the Kinetic Edge platform are (in alphabetical order): Atlanta, Austin, Birmingham, Boston, Buffalo, Charlotte, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Stamford/Hartford/New Haven, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Fort Myers, Houston, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, Orlando, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Phoenix, Providence, Raleigh, Rochester, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Syracuse, Tampa and Washington D.C.
“Vapor IO has an aggressive rollout plan that spans the entire U.S.,” said Cole Crawford, CEO at Vapor IO. “Together with partners like AlefEdge we are building the next chapter of the Internet. We are especially excited about AlefEdge’s SD-ME and its ability to deliver Enterprises the flexible and secure architectures, along with seamless integrations and new APIs to digitally transform their work environments. For the first time, enterprises in our target markets will have the ability to easily subscribe to AlefEdge’s SD-ME services and quickly integrate them into their network.”
About Vapor IO
Vapor IO is developing the largest nationwide edge networking, colocation and exchange platform at the edge of the wireless and wireline networks. Serving the world’s largest carriers, operators, cloud providers, web-scale companies and other innovative enterprises, the company’s Kinetic Edge® platform combines multi-tenant colocation with software-defined interconnection and high-speed networking. The Kinetic Edge platform offers the most flexible, highly-distributed infrastructure for delivering modern, low-latency applications, and the company has deployed its Kinetic Edge in Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, and Pittsburgh. By the end of 2020, the company plans to have its Kinetic Edge live in 20 US metropolitan markets, furthering its goal to deploy over 100 data centers in 36 U.S. markets over the next two years. Follow @VaporIO on Twitter.
Vapor, Kinetic Edge and Kinetic Edge Exchange are trademarks of Vapor IO, all rights reserved.
About AlefEdge
AlefEdge is the leader in the Edge Internet, delivering the power of the 5G based Edge Internet to application developers through our easy-to-use technologies. At AlefEdge, rich media applications, clouds and networks work in tandem to achieve an unprecedented level of performance. We enable 5G applications through open API’s at the Edge that make service adoption and distribution friction free. AlefEdge works with partners to build Edge applications for use cases such as Virtual and Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Industry 4.0, Smart Cities, IoT and Gaming. The AlefEdge Software-Defined Mobile Edge Platform brings 5G applications to life, unleashing a massive Edge Internet economy. AlefEdge is headquartered in New York City, with offices in India and Brazil.
Visit https://www.alefedge.com/ for more information on how we can help.
Media contacts:
For Vapor IO:
Jessica Gomez-Rees
Publicity IM
[email protected]
415-889-7444
For AlefEdge
Casey Bush / Kyle Loomis
Global Results Communications
[email protected]
+1-949-608-0276
Vapor IO and Digital Realty Integrate Platforms in Three Markets to Enable “Killer Apps” for Edge
Combined data center and networking infrastructure enables cloud-to-core-to-edge applications, including 4G & 5G networks, distributed AI, IoT, robotics, autonomous vehicles and augmented reality
AUSTIN, Texas – June 24, 2020 – Vapor IO, creators of the Kinetic Edge® platform and the first nationwide provider of neutral host edge colocation, networking and exchange services, and Digital Realty, a leading global provider of data center, colocation and interconnection solutions, today announced the availability of a joint core-to-edge solution in three U. S. metro areas. The solution connects Digital Realty’s PlatformDIGITAL™ with Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge services, making it easier for joint customers to deliver low-latency edge applications.
The combined solution is now available first in Atlanta, Chicago and Dallas, with plans for expansion to other cities. The initial 3-market deployment provides key locations for companies looking to test and validate new edge-native applications and workflows that connect and coordinate traffic exchange between PlatformDIGITAL™ and Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge deployments.
The two companies announced their collaboration in October of 2019 and have since completed the integration in the first three markets. The companies are now working closely on initial proof of concept workloads that will operate seamlessly together, whether deployed near the access edge on the Kinetic Edge platform or at the regional edge in Digital Realty’s centers of data exchange. Digital Realty’s connected campuses form an ideal meeting place to coordinate workloads and extend connections, making possible new distributed workflows spanning from distributed core to the access edge.
“We’ve always said the first ‘killer apps’ for the edge would be economics and the proverbial easy button,” said Cole Crawford, CEO & founder of Vapor IO. “Our collaboration with Digital Realty combines the cloud proximity, core, regional edge and interconnect capabilities of PlatformDIGITAL with the low-latency, distributed architecture of our Kinetic Edge service, offering a combined edge-to-core platform that is already enabling valuable emerging use cases.”
“Digital Realty’s PlatformDIGITAL is a first of its kind global data center platform designed to help customers scale digital business,” said Chris Sharp, CTO of Digital Realty. “By integrating Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge Exchange into Digital Realty’s campuses as part of PlatformDIGITAL, workloads in these locations can elastically span from the core to the edge, enabling new distributed workflows that dynamically scale digital business.”
Customers can work with solution architects from Digital Realty and Vapor IO to build a deployment model that optimizes infrastructure for specific use cases. Use cases enabled by the collaboration can benefit from accelerated time to market, lowered costs and optimal performance. Some of these use cases include:
- 4G & 5G Networks: Build public and private networks that leverage neutral hosts that can support virtualization efforts for both core market sites as well as edge sites in close proximity to RAN aggregation points.
- Distributed AI: Instantiate a virtuous cycle of core model development with edge inferencing, and enable use cases like factory automation and smart IoT.
IoT and Robotics: Augment the real world with smart machines, including telemetry control from the edge, storage at the core, and give machines the power to see with distributed AI. - Autonomous Vehicles: Enhance safety and performance with distributed AI and supported by core-to-edge infrastructure on land, sea or air, with large-scale training and data storage at the core.
- Augmented Reality: Solve industrial, professional and personal AR together with real-time AI inferencing and rendering at the edge, as well as training, content generation and storage at the core.
“Vapor IO’s partnership with Digital Realty enables a comprehensive edge connectivity solution from the last mile to the cloud,” said Ned Bellavance, Analyst for GigaOm. “The Kinetic Edge network from Vapor IO provides a distributed mesh of local sites with exchange points connecting to private data centers, internet providers, and cloud networks. The PlatformDIGITAL solution from Digital Realty enables customers to build the network they need for core to cloud solutions.”
About Vapor IO
Vapor IO is developing the largest nationwide edge networking, colocation and exchange platform at the edge of the wireless and wireline networks. The company’s Kinetic Edge® platform combines multi-tenant colocation with software-defined interconnection and high-speed networking. The Kinetic Edge platform offers the most flexible, highly-distributed infrastructure for delivering modern, low-latency applications, and the company has deployed its Kinetic Edge in Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, and Pittsburgh. By the end of 2020, the company plans to have its Kinetic Edge live in 20 US metropolitan markets, furthering its goal to deploy over 100 data centers in 36 U.S. markets over the next two years. Follow @VaporIO on Twitter.
Vapor, Kinetic Edge and Kinetic Edge Exchange are trademarks of Vapor IO, all rights reserved.
About Digital Realty
Digital Realty supports the data center, colocation and interconnection strategies of customers across the Americas, EMEA and APAC, ranging from cloud and information technology services, communications and social networking to financial services, manufacturing, energy, healthcare and consumer products. To learn more about Digital Realty, please visit digitalrealty.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
PR Contacts
Eleni Laughlin for Vapor IO
[email protected]
(510) 406-0798
Marc Musgrove
Digital Realty
[email protected]
(415) 508-2812
Vapor IO Presents First Ever Virtual Edgecon on June 24
Includes interactive sessions, live Q&As and real-time one-on-one meeting requests with other attendees
AUSTIN, Texas – June 8, 2020 – Vapor IO, creators of the Kinetic Edge™ platform, the first nationwide platform for edge colocation, networking and exchange services, announced its first virtual Edgecon, bringing the best of edge together, online, in a brand new way. Attendees join leading experts in edge computing for interactive sessions, live Q&As and the ability to request one-on-one meetings with other attendees in real-time. The event takes place June 24.
Speakers include Cole Crawford, CEO/founder of Vapor IO, Chris Sharp, CTO of Digital Realty, and Mahadev Satyanarayanan, Carnegie Professor, Computer Scientist at Carnegie Mellon.
Sessions include:
- Edge to Core: Realizing New Opportunities with Cole Crawford and Chris Sharp: Edge computing is enabling a gradient of resources that stretches from the edge back to the regional data center. How can these resources enable intelligent workloads that span from edge to core? How can edge and core be integrated effectively, and can real intelligent infrastructure exist?
- Edge-native Applications: Past, Present and Future with Mahadev “Satya” Satyanarayanan: Edge computing pioneer, Satya, will give his perspective on the past, present and future of edge applications as the industry progresses and edge adoption increases.
- Use Cases for a Distributed World: Building Tomorrow: Panel discussion on the key elements of optimal edge-native use cases and how can we build them out.
Edgecon is free of charge for confirmed guests. Register at https://virtualedgecon2020.splashthat.com.
Resources
About Vapor IO
Vapor IO is developing the largest nationwide edge networking, colocation and exchange platform at the edge of the wireless and wireline networks. The company’s Kinetic Edge® platform combines multi-tenant colocation with software-defined interconnection and high-speed networking. The Kinetic Edge platform offers the most flexible, highly-distributed infrastructure for delivering modern, low-latency applications, and the company has deployed its Kinetic Edge in Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, and Pittsburgh. By the end of 2020, the company plans to have its Kinetic Edge live in 20 US metropolitan markets, furthering its goal to deploy over 100 data centers in 36 U.S. markets over the next two years. Follow @VaporIO on Twitter.
Vapor, Kinetic Edge and Kinetic Edge Exchange are trademarks of Vapor IO, all rights reserved.
PR Contact
Eleni Laughlin
[email protected]
(510) 406-0798
Vapor IO Empowers the Autonomous Edge with Synse 3.0
Open source platform helps accelerate IT/OT convergence, making environmental data actionable within a data center
AUSTIN, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Vapor IO, creators of the Kinetic Edge™ platform, the first nationwide platform for edge colocation, networking and exchange services, today announced Synse 3.0, the next generation of its open source API for making environmental data actionable within the network and data center. The developers of Synse 3.0 rebuilt portions of the code, making it massively scalable and adaptable, and now includes the 2.0 version of the SDK, making it extremely easy for third parties to build drivers that integrate new types of equipment and sensors.
“Synse 3.0 is a potential game-changer for how Section delivers edge workloads for our partners, and we’re looking to incorporate its environmental data into our patent-pending Adaptive Edge Engine”
“As thousands of geographically distributed, lights-out data centers emerge at the edge, we have no choice but to make our infrastructure and applications autonomous,” said Cole Crawford, founder and CEO of Vapor IO. “Without the IT/OT convergence enabled by Synse, you don’t have enough context to properly automate edge environments. Synse 3.0 provides an open source mechanism for exposing critical environmental information that impacts servers and workloads, further empowering the autonomous edge.”
IT/OT Convergence
In traditional data centers, the IT (information technology) and OT (operational technology) rarely converge. The teams responsible for managing the servers and applications seldom have access to the OT performance data, which makes it difficult or impossible for them to make fully-informed decisions about resilience and workload optimization. For example, it’s much harder to diagnose or predict the failure of a hard drive without combining the drive’s performance over time with information from the surrounding facilities environment, such fluctuations in the HVAC system or air pressure at the server backplane.
Synse provides access to a wide variety of data streams, including the operating statuses of HVAC systems, fire suppression systems, security systems and sensors for things like pressure, vibration, temperature and humidity. Synse connects to environmental sensors and operational devices via plug-in drivers. Some common drivers, such as those for SNMP, IPMI, Intel AMT and Modbus, are already available in the Synse open source. Any drivers that don’t exist can be built with the Synse SDK.
The Synse Server organizes the data it consumes, then presents it through an API that can be queried with an HTTP request. Reliability and operations teams can then use their favorite tools to connect to a Synse server and ingest OT data for analysis and action. Synse data can be routed to open source analytics systems, such as Prometheus and Grafana, or be processed by proprietary systems according to user needs.
Workload Orchestration at the Edge
Edge environments demand the intelligent orchestration of workloads to make the best use of resources and to deliver high SLAs, such as those for resilience and latency. Software orchestrators, such as those used with container management systems like Mesos and Kubernetes, can be customized to include data from Synse when making workload placement and migration decisions. For example, a machine-learning algorithm could be built to predict server failures and that information could be used by an orchestration engine to start workloads on other servers, even those in other facilities, in order to mitigate any downtime caused by a failure.
“Synse 3.0 is a potential game-changer for how Section delivers edge workloads for our partners, and we’re looking to incorporate its environmental data into our patent-pending Adaptive Edge Engine,” said Wesley Reisz, VP of Technology at Section, a partner of Vapor IO. “The Adaptive Edge Engine allows our platform to dynamically reshape points of presence – and the workloads that run on them – based on real-time data. The possibility of extending those insights with Synse 3.0, with the added benefit of tying into tools that we already use like Prometheus and Grafana, could have an important impact on the way we run applications at the edge.”
Using Synse
Anybody can use, extend and adapt Synse free of charge. Synse 3.0 is licensed under an open source GNU General Public License v3.0, and includes the following components:
- Synse API: Uniform API for presenting sensor and environmental information from data centers.
- Synse Server: HTTP server that runs locally in a facility and which connects to operational equipment and sensors via plugins.
- Synse Plugins: Device and protocol drivers used by the Synse server. A growing library of plugins are being made available as part of the Synse open source and developers can use the Synse SDK to customize existing plugins or build new ones.
- Synse CLI: Tool for querying Synse from the command line.
- Synse SDK: Software development kit for building Synse plugins.
For detailed information on getting started with Synse 3.0, read the documentation or access the GitHub repo.
Use Cases
Here are a few use cases for Synse:
- Data center monitoring: Synse is designed to work alongside and augment existing monitoring and DCIM tools. It provides powerful data feeds capable of augmenting existing monitoring solutions. As an example, Vapor IO uses Synse to power the company’s NOC (Network Operations Center) as well as its Kinetic Edge Portal (which lets customers view environmental status surrounding their equipment).
- Resilience: Service uptime in highly-distributed edge environments demands software-based highly-available (HA) systems, such as those offered by platforms like Mesos and Kubernetes. Synse can provide crucial environmental information that can inform automated schedulers, allowing them to make the best placement decisions to ensure software-based failover in the event of a facilities outage. For example, Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge lets application providers treat an entire city as one large, virtual data center. By using technologies such as Kubernetes and Mesos to implement high-availability services on the Kinetic Edge using Synse, applications can achieve uptimes well in excess of the industry standard 99.999%.
- Predictive maintenance & self-remediation: By using Synse environmental data to contextualize other data sources, more accurate and sophisticated machine learning models can be built that provide predictive maintenance and autonomous remediation solutions. For example, prior to Synse you might know that a hard drive failed; but, with Synse, you might be able to correlate those failures to power surges or temperature fluctuations that can be used to improve predictive maintenance algorithms.
- Remote operations: In addition to supporting API calls for reading data from operational equipment, Synse can also be used to control equipment remotely. Vapor IO uses this capability of Synse to implement its remotely operable lights-out data centers.
Resources
About Vapor IO
Vapor IO is developing the largest nationwide edge networking, colocation and exchange platform at the edge of the wireless and wireline networks. Serving the world’s largest carriers, operators, cloud providers, web-scale companies and other innovative enterprises, the company’s Kinetic Edge® platform combines multi-tenant colocation with software-defined interconnection and high-speed networking. The Kinetic Edge platform offers the most flexible, highly-distributed infrastructure for delivering modern, low-latency applications, and the company has deployed its Kinetic Edge in Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, and Pittsburgh. By the end of 2020, the company plans to have its Kinetic Edge live in 20 US metropolitan markets, furthering its goal to deploy over 100 data centers in 36 U.S. markets over the next two years. Follow @VaporIO on Twitter.
Vapor, Kinetic Edge and Kinetic Edge Exchange are trademarks of Vapor IO, all rights reserved.