Container Virtualisation on vehicle Routers

Unwired Edge Compute is built on lightweight container virtualization, and thus can be used on multifunctional router/application host devices, or separated to dedicated devices only acting as application hosts. Consolidating the functionality of a router and an application host into a single device not only streamlines deployment, but also offers a robust solution for a wide array of network configurations.

Key Advantages of Container Virtualization:

• Cost Efficiency: By merging the capabilities of routers and application hosts into a single device, we significantly reduce the need for multiple physical units, offering a more cost-effective solution for budget-conscious projects.
• Simplified Infrastructure: Our integrated devices minimize the complexity of wiring, facilitating easier and cleaner installations.
• Resource Optimization: Capitalize on the unused capacity of routers by deploying containerized applications, enhancing the utility and efficiency of your network infrastructure.
• Security

Defense in depth – Increased Security

For environments where security is paramount, Unwired Edge Compute empowers users to implement a “defense in depth” strategy. This method layers multiple security mechanisms to create a robust barrier against threats, eliminating any single point of failure and ensuring comprehensive network protection.

With Unwired Edge Compute, you have the flexibility to architect your network with security at its core:

• Dedicated Routers: Devices focused solely on networking tasks, including Layer 2/3 operations and VPN configurations.
• Application Hosts: Separate entities dedicated to running virtualized container workloads, ensuring isolated and secure application management.

Regardless of your deployment preference, Unwired provides a comprehensive solution that facilitates the integration of containerized applications within complex networking environments. Whether you’re aiming to consolidate your network functions for simplicity and cost savings or to segregate them for enhanced security, our Unwired Edge Compute platform is designed to adapt to your specific requirements.

Container applications come in two forms: stateful and stateless. Unwired Edge Compute harnesses the unique capabilities of stateless containers to offer unparalleled efficiency and resilience. These containers can be updated seamlessly, without the need for complex migrations, making them ideal for maintaining continuous service availability, especially in hot failover scenarios.

Benefits of Stateless Containers:

• Effortless Upgrades: Transition seamlessly to newer application versions by simply restarting containers, bypassing the complexities of traditional upgrades.
• Data Integrity: Avoid the risks associated with data migration and corruption, ensuring your data remains secure and intact.
• Enhanced Security: Stateless containers minimize exposure to security vulnerabilities.
• Resource Efficiency: Benefit from minimal memory and disk usage, contributing to a leaner, more efficient system.
• Simplified Failover: Enhance system & application availability and fault tolerance.

Implementing Stateless Containers with Unwired Edge Compute:

To support stateless operations, our platform offers multiple integration points:

• Dynamic Configuration & State Injection: Utilize our API and container orchestration tools to inject configuration settings and state information directly into containers. (injecting file content into container file paths)
• Environment Variables: Configure containers with essential settings through environment variables for seamless application behavior.
• Automated Network Setup: Leverage IP Address Management (IPAM) and Layer 2/DHCP services for automatic network interface configuration

Stateful container support

While stateless containers offer numerous advantages, stateful containers are indispensable for scenarios requiring persistent data storage, such as:

• Data Buffering: Ideal for applications that need to store data continuously from sensors or cameras.
• Resilience to Disruptions: Ensure data persistence and resilience against power losses or system reboots.

To support applications with state requirements, Unwired Edge Compute provides options for containers to request persistent volumes, which are mounted into the container namespace. This way, isolated persistent volumes can be utilized for data writes (e.g. files, databases, …) with full isolation between container workloads.

Hot failover is greatly enhanced by the use of stateless containers. This setup allows multiple routers or application hosts to run identical applications simultaneously. While one actively handles all requests, the others stand by as backups, ready to take over instantaneously if needed. This architecture facilitates failover times within seconds, ensuring minimal service disruption.

Key Benefits for Transportation:

• Seamless Coupling for Trains: Ideal for scenarios like train coupling, where network services merge into a single network segment, maintaining uninterrupted connectivity.
• High-Resilience Transportation Applications: Supports critical applications, such as passenger counting and CCTV, with high resilience requirements.
• Meeting SLA Requirements: Achieves demanding Service Level Agreements with greater ease, enhancing customer satisfaction.

Hot failover with Unwired Edge Compute represents a robust solution for maintaining continuous application availability, particularly beneficial in the transportation sector where reliability is paramount.

At Unwired, our approach to security is all-encompassing and meticulous, designed to protect your systems throughout their entire lifecycle. Here’s how we ensure the greatest security for your application virtualization:

• Regular Security Maintenance: We conduct frequent security scans on all Unwired Edge Cloud OS releases, ensuring they are updated and maintained for service lifetimes of 10 years or more.
• Robust Security Measures: Our system’s security is bolstered by both organizational and technical measures, including adherence to ISO 27001 standards, penetration testing, and secure design and development processes.
• Secure Configuration: We prioritize secure defaults and maximize the lockdown of features on routers and application hosts to protect against unauthorized access.
• Advanced Observability: Strong observability and metrics are available through APIs, facilitating detailed monitoring and analysis.
• Default Application Isolation: Every container application is isolated by default, providing a secure environment for application execution.
• Network Isolation: LAN networks are isolated from each other by default, enhancing the security of your network infrastructure.

Furthermore, our advanced metrics and telemetry capabilities can be seamlessly integrated into customers’ operational systems. This integration supports comprehensive monitoring, alerting, SIEM, and other critical operational processes, ensuring that your security posture is both proactive and responsive.

Unwired’s open API architecture is designed to facilitate seamless integration and the efficient use of complementary applications, offering a suite of development tools tailored to a wide array of use cases.

Key API Use Cases for Edge Computing:

• Efficient Deployment: Streamline the deployment and distribution of container images to ensure your applications are always up-to-date and running smoothly.
• Sophisticated Orchestration: Manage container configurations effortlessly, including settings for injected configurations, environment variables, network setups, and persistent volumes.
• Lifecycle Management: Take control of the software lifecycle for container applications, from deployment through updates to decommissioning.
• Enhanced Observability: Gain detailed insights into both the orchestration/runtime metrics of container applications and the applications’ own metrics, which can be directly integrated into the Unwired Edge Cloud and accessed via the Metrics API.

Through Unwired’s comprehensive API management, users gain access to powerful tools and capabilities designed to optimize edge computing environments, making it easier than ever to manage, observe, and automate systems at scale.

Unwired Edge Cloud delivers around-the-clock monitoring for virtualized applications, facilitating seamless integration with your existing operational and observability frameworks. Our monitoring solutions are built on the robust foundation of Prometheus, offering comprehensive tools to maintain and enhance application performance and health.

Features of Unwired’s Monitoring Solutions:

• Prometheus UI: Utilize the Prometheus UI for executing PromQL queries, enabling precise and customizable insights into application metrics.
• Prometheus Federation: Benefit from Prometheus federation capabilities and query endpoints, allowing for extensive third-party integration and broader monitoring coverage.
• Internal Metrics on Application Health: As a PaaS provider committed to operational excellence, Unwired prioritizes the health and reliability of your applications. Our internal metrics track application healthiness, ensuring they run efficiently 24/7 on any device managed by Unwired Edge Cloud.

Choosing Unwired’s monitoring means more than accessing advanced tools. Rely on our all-encompassing monitoring solutions to ensure your virtualized applications operate flawlessly, around the clock and across the globe.