Overview of IBM Edge Application Manager
This section describes IBM Edge Application Manager (IEAM).
IEAM capabilities
IBM Edge Application Manager (IEAM) provides you with edge computing features to help you manage and deploy workloads from a management hub cluster to remote instances of OpenShift Container Platform or other Kubernetes-based clusters.
Architecture
The goal of edge computing is to harness the disciplines that have been created for hybrid cloud computing to support remote operations of edge computing facilities. IEAM is designed for that purpose.
A typical deployment of IEAM includes an instance of OpenShift Container Platform that is installed on your hub cluster data center. The hub cluster is where the management of all of your remote edge clusters occurs.
These edge clusters can be installed in remote on-premises locations to make your application workloads local to where your critical business operations physically occur, such as at your factories, warehouses, retail outlets, distribution centers, and more.
The following diagram depicts the high-level topology for a typical edge computing setup:
The IEAM management hub is designed specifically for edge node management to minimize deployment risks and to manage the service software lifecycle on edge nodes fully autonomously. System Administrators and Cloud installers manage the deployment and installation of the hub components. Software developers develop and publish edge services to the management hub.
Components
IBM Edge Application Manager (IEAM) includes several components that are bundled with the product.
View the following table for a description of the IEAM components:
| Component | Version | Description |
|---|---|---|
| IEAM management hub | 4.1.0 | The IEAM management hub is designed specifically for edge node management to minimize deployment risks and to manage the service software lifecycle on edge nodes fully autonomously. System Administrators and Cloud installers manage the deployment and installation of the hub components. Software developers develop and publish edge services to the management hub. |
| Agbot | 4.1.0 | Agreement bot (agbot) instances are created centrally and are responsible for deploying workloads and machine learning models to IEAM. |
| Exchange | 4.1.0 | The Exchange provides the REST API that holds all the definitions (patterns, policies, services, and so on) used by all the other components in IEAM. |
| UI Management console | 4.1.0 | The web UI used by IEAM administrators to view and manage the other components of IEAM. |
| MMS | 4.1.0 | The Model Management System (MMS) facilitates the storage, delivery, and security of models, data, and other metadata packages needed by edge services. This enables edge nodes to easily send and receive models and metadata to and from the cloud. |
| Container registry | 4.1.0 | The Container registry uses Docker networking features to isolate Docker containers such that only the services that require them can connect to them. If an edge service image includes assets that are not appropriate to include in a public registry, you can use a private Docker container registry, for example, the OpenShift Image Registry or the IBM Cloud Container Registry, where access is tightly controlled. |
| Edge node | 4.1.0 | Any edge device, edge cluster, or edge gateway where edge computing takes place. |
| Edge cluster | 4.1.0 | A computer in a remote operations facility that runs enterprise application workloads and shared services. An edge cluster can be used to connect to an edge device, connect to another edge cluster, or serve as an edge gateway for connecting to the cloud or to a larger network. |
| Edge device | 4.1.0 | A piece of equipment, such as an assembly machine on a factory floor, an ATM, an intelligent camera, or an automobile, that has integrated compute capacity on which meaningful work can be performed and data that is collected or produced. |
| Cluster agent | 2.26.12 | This is a container image which is installed as an agent on edge clusters to enable node workload management by IEAM. |
| Device agent | 2.26.12 | This component is installed on edge devices to enable node workload management by IEAM. |
| Edge service | 4.1.0 | A service that is designed specifically to be deployed on an edge cluster. |
What's next
For more information about using IEAM and developing edge services, review the topics that are listed in IBM Edge Application Manager (IEAM) Welcome page