Kubernetes.io Blog: KubeEdge, a Kubernetes Native Edge Computing Framework

Author: Sanil Kumar D (Huawei), Jun Du(Huawei)

KubeEdge becomes the first Kubernetes Native Edge Computing Platform with both Edge and Cloud components open sourced!

Open source edge computing is going through its most dynamic phase of development in the industry. So many open source platforms, so many consolidations and so many initiatives for standardization! This shows the strong drive to build better platforms to bring cloud computing to the edges to meet ever increasing demand. KubeEdge, which was announced last year, now brings great news for cloud native computing! It provides a complete edge computing solution based on Kubernetes with separate cloud and edge core modules. Currently, both the cloud and edge modules are open sourced.

Unlike certain light weight kubernetes platforms available around, KubeEdge is made to build edge computing solutions extending the cloud. The control plane resides in cloud, though scalable and extendable. At the same time, the edge can work in offline mode. Also it is lightweight and containerized, and can support heterogeneous hardware at the edge. With the optimization in edge resource utlization, KubeEdge positions to save significant setup and operation cost for edge solutions. This makes it the most compelling edge computing platform in the world currently, based on Kubernetes!

Kube(rnetes)Edge! - Opening up a new Kubernetes-based ecosystem for Edge Computing

The key goal for KubeEdge is extending Kubernetes ecosystem from cloud to edge. From the time it was announced to the public at KubeCon in Shanghai in November 2018, the architecture direction for KubeEdge was aligned to Kubernetes, as its name!

It started with its v0.1 providing the basic edge computing features. Now, with its latest release v0.2, it brings the cloud components to connect and complete the loop. With consistent and scalable Kubernetes-based interfaces, KubeEdge enables the orchestration and management of edge clusters similar to how Kubernetes manages in the cloud. This opens up seamless possibilities of bringing cloud computing capabilities to the edge, quickly and efficiently.

KubeEdge Links:

  • Website
  • SourceCode
  • Documentation
    Based on its roadmap and architecture, KubeEdge tries to support all edge nodes, applications, devices and even the cluster management consistent with the Kuberenetes interface. This will help the edge cloud act exactly like a cloud cluster. This can save a lot of time and cost on the edge cloud development deployment based on KubeEdge.

KubeEdge provides a containerized edge computing platform, which is inherently scalable. As it’s modular and optimized, it is lightweight (66MB foot print and ~30MB running memory) and could be deployed on low resource devices. Similarly, the edge node can be of different hardware architecture and with different hardware configurations. For the device connectivity, it can support multiple protocols and it uses a standard MQTT-based communication. This helps in scaling the edge clusters with new nodes and devices efficiently.

You heard it right!

KubeEdge Cloud Core modules are open sourced!