Today we announced that our industry-first open orchestration solution for distributed edge computing is now fully integrated with the Microsoft Azure IoT platform, enabling organizations with unprecedented ease-of-use, visibility and control for their edge hardware and software at scale.
This integration simplifies deployment and full lifecycle management of Azure IoT solutions at the edge with choice of hardware, including single-click bulk deployment of the Azure IoT Edge Runtime, Azure IoT Edge modules, and any additional apps required for a given use case. Key features for our subscription-based cloud solution include zero-touch provisioning, zero-trust security, risk-free updates, and a built-in app marketplace.
A Breakthrough for Developers
The rapid growth of data requires more processing at the edge, closer to the source. Legacy orchestration solutions designed for centralized, physically-secure data centers were not built to address the diversity, scale, security, and autonomous operation needed for distributed edge computing. We have built our orchestration solution from the ground up to meet these needs, enabling developers with the freedom to provision, control, monitor, and manage any combination of edge hardware and applications with any on-prem or cloud backend.
Our comprehensive integration with Azure IoT provides the tens of thousands of developers who count on the platform’s powerful data management and analytics capabilities with an easy-to-use solution for operationalizing their distributed edge computing deployments securely at scale.
An Insurance Policy Against Lock-in
Further benefiting developers is that our orchestration solution is based on a truly open foundation — the open source EVE-OS operating system developed within Project EVE in the Linux Foundation’s LF Edge organization. The vendor-neutral open APIs provided by EVE-OS helps developers avoid vendor lock-in while fully enjoying the benefits of the Azure IoT platform and provides a foundation for ZEDEDA’s leading open edge ecosystem of hardware OEMs, ISVs and domain-expert service providers. In this regard, EVE-OS can be thought of as “the Android of distributed edge computing”.
ZEDEDA’s open ecosystem provides developers with a choice of best-in-class technologies and services as they build connected solutions. As part of this, ZEDEDA is helping customers accelerate time to value by working with leading hardware OEMs to qualify and pre-install EVE-OS on their hardware in their factories. This enables customers to drop ship hardware to the field, and once a technician connects power and networking they can leave the site with all subsequent lifecycle management functions being performed remotely.
ZEDEDA’s Orchestration Solution for the Distributed Edge
A Single View Into Your Connected Operations
Our advanced, cloud-based user interface provides all stakeholders (e.g., developers, OT and IT admins) with a single view into the status of their entire distributed edge infrastructure, including both hardware and applications. Remote access is based on policy and can be customized by role, including for third-party service providers.
Our app marketplace integrates with users’ existing CI/CD pipeline and the solution is built to scale to single-click bulk app deployment and updates for large fleets in the field.
Simplified Purchasing
We are also very excited to announce that we have secured co-sell ready status as part of Microsoft’s One Commercial Partner program. ZEDEDA’s Edge Orchestration for Azure IoT is now available for purchase through the Azure Marketplace and is eligible for Azure benefits, allowing qualifying customers to apply their Azure Marketplace purchase toward their Azure consumption commitment. This makes it easy for customers to purchase our SaaS solution as part of their overall engagement with Microsoft.
The Three Z’s
The ZEDEDA solution is architected with three core principles in mind — Zero Limits, Zero Trust and Zero Touch. Our holistic approach provides customers with the most flexible, universal and open solution for their distributed edge orchestration needs, made even more powerful through our integrations with leading platforms like Azure IoT.
Zero Limits
Edge computing deployments are growing, and orchestration solutions must scale to support hundreds to hundreds of thousands of edge compute nodes per fleet. ZEDEDA provides a future-proof foundation for remote visibility and control of distributed edge computing at this geographically-distributed scale.
Our utilization of the open source EVE-OS as a bare metal foundation for edge computing hardware provides developers with peace of mind that they won’t get locked in as they build new solutions with an inherently diverse mix of hardware and software — including to our own subscription-based cloud orchestration service.
Further, our solution enabled by EVE-OS supports any combination of Docker containers, Kubernetes clusters and virtual machines (VMs) deployed on any edge computing node while connecting to any backend. This provides organizations with a transition path from legacy applications (e.g., Windows-based SCADA, HMI, Historian, Point of Sale, VMS apps) to modern, cloud-native software development. Our native integration with Azure IoT delivers a better-together story with this leading platform while keeping customers’ options open as their needs evolve.
Zero Touch
The ZEDEDA orchestration solution dramatically simplifies deployment of distributed edge computing infrastructure and applications. Field operations teams can deploy and manage hardware and applications anywhere with no IT expertise required on site. Our integration with the Azure Device Provisioning Service (DPS) enables customers with instant, automated, and secure connectivity to Azure IoT Hub on their network of choice.
Our unparalleled out-of-the-box experience includes a built-in app marketplace for on-demand deployment of custom innovations in addition to featured offerings from our leading ISVs partners. Customers from end users to solution OEMs also have the option of white-labeling our cloud service and curating content in their own private app marketplace.
ZEDEDA’s integration with Azure IoT enables developers to quickly scale their projects from PoC to production, automating deployment of choice of hardware in the field, installation of the Azure IoT Edge runtime and any other preferred apps, followed by full lifecycle management of both hardware and software.
Simply put, working with Microsoft and other ecosystem partners, ZEDEDA has created a breakthrough solution that supports leading developers, system integrators and distributors to simplify all phases of scaling distributed edge computing projects for end-customers.
Zero Trust
ZEDEDA’s Zero Trust security architecture compliments the robust security posture of Azure IoT, protecting edge computing deployments with features spanning from silicon to cloud. Our security foundation includes support for hardware-based root of trust (e.g., TPM, TEE), measured boot, remote attestation, encryption of data at rest and in motion, I/O port blocking to prevent tampering in the field and distributed firewall to govern data flow from edge to cloud. This policy-based, per-app firewall can segment field assets from upstream networks and data systems to protect critical operations.
The ability to deploy this level of security at the distributed edge is what sets our solution apart. As Gartner Research Vice President Bob Gill wrote in Gartner’s 2021 Strategic Roadmap for Edge Computing: “One thing that stands out when developing a POC for an edge implementation is that creating a single system for a trial can be straightforward, but implementing such a system at scale, including enterprise-grade security, orchestration, life cycle management and governance, is a daunting task.”
You can learn more about our comprehensive zero trust security approach in this whitepaper.
Delivering Business Outcomes Together
ZEDEDA’s joint solution with Microsoft enables any use case in any vertical, spanning Manufacturing, Utilities, Renewable Energy, Oil and Gas, Retail and Healthcare and beyond. The combination of Azure IoT with our leading distributed edge orchestration solution enables developers to activate functions such as data ingestion, AI/ML, networking and security so they can instantly unlock the value of edge data to make real-time decisions, maximize operational efficiency and drive new business outcomes. All while providing complete flexibility as their needs grow over time.
“When we focused our company on MachineEdge’s pump system optimization, we needed solutions to three challenges: updating software external to our Azure IoT Edge modules, holistic device security, and device monitoring.” said Michael Thompson, CTO of PeopleFlo, “ZEDEDA provided a secure solution for device management and application deployment while future-proofing MachineEdge for new innovations.” You can read about PeopleFlo’s story as they revolutionize the industrial pump industry with ZEDEDA and Azure IoT in this case study.
To learn more about ZEDEDA’s solution, visit www.zededa.com and download our comprehensive architecture whitepaper. For more information on ZEDEDA’s Edge Orchestration for Azure IoT, visit the Azure Marketplace.
You can also discover more about the ZEDEDA Azure IoT integration solution for the distributed edge during our March 30 webinar at 10 am PT. The webinar will feature a customer case study (BOBST) and a keynote presentation from Microsoft. Register here today!
