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IBM Edge Application Manager in the IBM CIO Office
Reducing regional level latency by approximately 27%
In the IBM CIO Office, we serve the needs of hundreds of thousands of IBMers across over 150 countries worldwide. One of our biggest problems relates to corporate communications, particularly with big events like company-wide education or announcements, where we need to make sure that each IBMer has the best experience possible in viewing and interacting with this content, regardless of where they are in the world. We have dramatically improved our ability to do so using edge computing and the IBM® Edge Application Manager (IEAM) solution.
Edge computing refers to the concept of having workloads, data and users located as close together as possible to reduce latency, which puts a lower limit on the time to transfer information between any two connected devices. The goal of an edge computing architecture is to bring the data and workloads physically close to the user. And that goal poses interesting technical challenges as we need to scale out the network in such a way that every IBM office location can run workloads locally, which requires managing a large, distributed infrastructure.
Our scaling solution uses a deployment model that allows us to “clone” machines between locations, ensuring that every location has the same copy of the code to decrease variability and simplify management. We do this with unified software delivery pipelines that build, sign, and publish the software to a trusted repository from where the machines obtain their copy. Once installed, the machine is immutable, ensuring that every software and hardware component stays the same. This approach, commonly known as “immutable infrastructure” helps us solve the challenge of scaling out the installation of edge network hardware devices across the globe.
The second challenge is how to run the right workloads at the right places to serve the populations that are in a particular IBM office location. IEAM was a perfect match for this challenge. IEAM enables the management of a worldwide fleet of machines and allows us to use flexible policies to determine what to run where. We can specify, for example, caching in Armonk and monitoring in Dubai. This intent-based approach brings a range of capabilities that enable the deployment of complex patterns of workloads.
27% reduction
Achieved approximately 27% reduction in regional level latency
> 250,000 IBMers
Rely on the IBM CIO Office
In our case, the first use was to deploy the enterprise content delivery network (ECDN) built by IBM Watson® Media, which saves bandwidth by allowing a single copy of video content to be read from the internet and distributed to many viewers within an office location. Our analysis showed that ECDN has a distribution factor of 1 to 10, meaning that for each video viewed, it can serve 10 different viewers. This is important, because while the number of videos viewed has increased substantially every month in which we have measured it, with this solution, the number of videos transmitted and buffered has increased at a much slower rate, as shown below.
These three layers—scaling out, managing where workloads run and deploying services—are key to the success of edge computing. However, we did not just stop at deploying ECDN with IEAM. Instead, we are expanding its use to other workloads as well.
Before IEAM, we had a custom distribution application that effectively did the same thing. However, it was very rudimentary, and when we implemented the content delivery network, we realized it was a good opportunity to jettison anything custom we had written and use the product instead. Using IEAM has proven to be much better than our custom code.
The content delivery network is not just for offline events but also for streaming. For instance, during a live event, streaming can cause an excessive network load to and from the origin site. Having a local cache that the stream is reflected through solves this problem. Therefore, the content delivery network is crucial for both offline and live streaming events.
Our external firewall team developed the project by repurposing existing code. Once IEAM became available, we started to divest from our internal tool. We developed an automated build system for the devices, so when someone plugs them in on the network, they connect to the management device, boot from the network, and install the system. IEAM can then manage these devices as they are deployed.
However, it is not just about efficiency in deploying new workloads. IEAM helps us with updating workloads and deploying patches as well.
IEAM enables us to control the deployment of workload versions across all connected machines. Our process involves detecting vulnerabilities in a particular workload, building new versions with patches from the vendor and pushing them to our IBM container registry. Then, we instruct IEAM to gradually deploy the new version to the fleet of machines running the workload, one at a time, waiting for each one to succeed before moving on to the next. This controlled rollout is facilitated by IEAM's application layer, which we can use to test newer versions on a subset of nodes before rolling out to the rest of the production systems.
IEAM simplifies the effort required to deploy fixes, giving operators the tools to create sophisticated deployment pipelines and react quickly to security vulnerabilities. On the build side, we rely on automated pipelines to build images, enabling us to deploy quickly. When it comes to security vulnerabilities, this expeditious deployment process is critical, and rolling out the entire fleet is as simple as pushing a button.
As we look back on the benefits of IEAM, one thing we have determined is that the use of open-source frameworks, like the Kubernetes’s operator in development, is key. This has allowed us to quickly jump in without having to rewrite everything we had already done. From a development standpoint, this has been a huge benefit. It may be behind the scenes, but it is a big deal. The amount of effort required to develop things that are not trivial is significant, and IEAM makes this seamless.
In addition to concrete goals like upgrading and growing, we are also exploring more innovative and experimental ideas. These could have a significant impact, such as addressing environmental concerns by putting workloads to sleep when there is no demand. We believe that with IEAM’s flexibility, the possibilities are endless.
The Chief Information Officer (CIO) Office leads IBM’s internal IT strategy and is responsible for delivering, securing, modernizing and supporting the IT solutions that IBMers use to do their jobs every day.
The CIO strategy encompasses creating an adaptive IT platform that makes IT easier to access across the enterprise, accelerates problem-solving and serves as an innovation engine for IBM, catalyzing business growth.
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Produced in the United States of America, June 2023.
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