Architechture
EFO - EPM
The “EFO-EPM” reference point between the EFO and the Edge platform manager is used for the application management, including application lifecycle, rules and requirements, checking Edge service availability, and exchanging related notification between the EFO and the Edge platform.
Responsibility:
Service deploy requests, workload instantiation, application activation, inventory update
Context creation requests and responses, context deletion requests and responses
Service termination requests, workload termination, application deactivation, inventory deletion,
Application reconfiguration, inventory update
EFO - VIM
The “EFO-VIM” reference point between the EFO and the IM/VIM is used for management of the virtualized and non-virtualized resources in the Edge system.
Responsibility:
Resource requests and responses (including resource creation, resource status query, resource discovery, resource reconfiguration, resource deletion)
Store the images
Resource allocation, infrastructure instantiation
Resource release
EPM - VIM
The “EPM-VIM” reference point between the Edge platform manager and the IM/VIM is responsible for the communication between these two entities.
Responsibility:
Infrastructure termination requests
Infrastructure update requests
(Virtualization) Infrastructure Manager (IM/VIM)
An entity managing the infrastructure resources named Virtual Network Infrastructure, which can be virtualized or non-virtualized. The Infrastructure Manager (IM) is responsible for managing both the virtualized infrastructure and the non-virtualized infrastructure as well as its virtualized and non-virtualized resources, including resource allocation, infrastructure preparation, and system information report. As the infrastructure managers are usually implemented in virtual ways, such as virtual machines or containers, it is frequently called as Virtualization Infrastructure Manager and is abbreviated as VIM. Therefore, it is called IM/VIM in this document to emphasize its nature to support virtualized environment.
Ep - Mgmt
The “Ep-Mgmt” reference point between the Edge platform manager and the Edge platform is used for the configuration of Edge platform, including the rules, requirements and lifecycle support of applications.
Responsibility:
Application creation, configuration requests, inventory update
Context creation requests and responses
Context deletion requests and responses
Configuration requests, application deletion, inventory deletion
Application reconfiguration
Vi - Mgmt
The “Vi-Mgmt” reference point between the IM/VIM and the VNI is used for the management and coordination of the VNI and the data plane in the Edge system.
Responsibility:
Resource creation
Resource replacement, resource update
Resource deletion
Store the images
Assign application packages
Infrastructure termination
Edge Platform
The Edge platform is responsible for the Edge functions which are necessary to run Edge applications. It serves as a platform where Edge applications are able to provide, discover, and consume certain Edge services. The Edge platform also instructs data plane, and configures DNS proxy/server according to the traffic rules prescribed by the Edge platform manager.
Ep - Dp
The “Ep-Dp” reference point between the Edge platform and the data plane of the (virtual) network infrastructure is used to set the data plane on how to route traffic among applications, network, service, etc.
Responsibility:
Assign application packages
It is also involved in some pre-advance preparation, such as images onboarding, application scaling, and container installation.
Data Plane
The functional entity that handles the traffic routes. The data plane in the Edge host is responsible for dealing with the traffic rules, including routing the traffic among entities, as well as task offloading and installation of application from IM/VIM.
Virtual Network Infrastructure
The (Virtual) Network Infrastructure (VNI) is totality of all hardware and software that build up the entire environment where VNFs are deployed. The virtualization infrastructure is deployed as an VNI and is managed by a IM/VIM.
Ep - App
The “Ep-App” reference point between the Edge platform and the Edge applications provides the registration, discovery and communication support of services.
Responsibility:
Application creation and deletion, configuration, context creation and deletion
Edge App
Edge applications are executed as virtual machines on top of the virtualization infrastructure provided by the Edge host, and can interact with the Edge platform to consume and provide Edge services. An Edge Application is composed of single or multiple virtual function(s), which can be managed and orchestrated by the VF M&O component in EFO. It is possible either for an Edge App to provide several services, or for multiple Edge Apps to provide a single service.
Four Users
The provider of Edge devices.
The designer and onboarder of Edge Applications.
The service operator dealing with the management and operation of Edge Applications.
The users accessing the system via the End User Apps.
Actions
>>resource Management
Resource Management
Resource Creation
Resource
Status Query
Resource
Discovery
Resource
Reconfiguration
Resource Deletion
5 types of APIs in Resource Management
The service APIs are used for the resource management and communication between the components. As shown in the Figure, these service APIs can be used to do several common operations on the resources, including resource creation, resource status query, resource search, resource reconfiguration, and resource deletion. The resources we mention here include physical resources and virtual resources. The physical resources are the hardware equipment available for the edge system, including physical servers, facilities, and infrastructure. The virtual resources can be considered as the software, computing, networking, and storage resources in the system, as well as the virtualised infrastructure.
>>Application Management
Application Management
App Onboarding
App Instantiation
Context
Creation
App
Reconfiguration
Context Deletion
App Termination
6 types of APIs in Application Lifecycle Management
To provide the complete lifecycle management of edge applications, the system has to have knowledge about the application runtime information, thus it is necessary to specify the procedures and the message flows between all components involved.
>>Standard Documents
| Name | Link |
|---|---|
| 1935-2023 - IEEE Standard for Edge/Fog Manageability and Orchestration | Link |
| Hung-Yu Wei, Yao Chiang, and Tse-Yu Chen, “Design for Edge/Fog Platform Management and Orchestration,” technical contribution to IEEE P1935 standard working group (archieved in IEEE SA contributors collection), 2023 | Link |
| Hung-Yu Wei, Yao Chiang, and Tse-Yu Chen, “Design for Edge/Fog Application Management and Orchestration,” technical contribution to IEEE P1935 standard working group (archieved in IEEE SA contributors collection), 2023 | Link |
| Hung-Yu Wei, Yao Chiang, and Tse-Yu Chen, “Framework and Elements for Edge/Fog Manageability and Orchestration,” technical contribution to IEEE P1935 standard working group (archieved in IEEE SA contributors collection), 2023 | Link |
>>External Links
| Name | Link |
|---|---|
| Fog/Edge Industry Community of IEEE Communication Society | Link |