Scaling your Industrial Edge Computing Projects with an Edge Management and Orchestration tool

Accelerating Digital Transformation at the Manufacturing Edge

Despite the vast data collected by the industry in recent years, less than 25% is ever processed. This is because often enterprises lack the adequate infrastructure to effectively utilize their data.

As organizations‘ appetite for seizing opportunities at the edge grow, there is a clear need for data driven industries to choose the right infrastructure that will allow them to scale from an initial implementation to extensive deployments across numerous facilities. 

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Maximizing Value from Edge Data Using AI

The edge isn’t just about data collection, it’s also about on-site analytics.

The next two years are poised to see significant growth in the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into industrial processes: from predictive maintenance to quality control, AI is set to revolutionize every aspect of manufacturing. Intelligence will become ubiquitous. The challenge lies in leveraging it efficiently and effectively to propel digital transformation.

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Renewed Focus on Industrial Edge Computing

The growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) and enterprise adoption of AI, has brought renewed attention to industrial edge computing. In manufacturing, the edge encompasses the production environment where cameras, sensors, machines,  and assembly lines generate vast amounts of data. Using edge computing technologies, manufacturers can process this data in real-time directly at the source, enabling faster decision-making and significantly improving operational outcomes.

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"Edge Computing is essential for the digitization and automation of industry, facilitating real-time remote monitoring, predictive maintenance, and process performance optimization."  Barbara

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Preparing for Scale your Edge Computing Deployments

The precise nature of edge infrastructure means that when an application fails, or device has issues if you don’t have the infrastructure in place a technician is forced to go to the actual location to make updates or reboot a system which can be very difficult if you are running dozens of edge devices in different locations.

To avoid this costly and time-consuming process, the edge computing infrastructure, whether composed of physical or virtual servers, must be easy to install and manage. The answer to this problem is to adopt a management platform that allows system administrators or IT personnel to easily deploy, manage, and scale applications across the entire edge infrastructure from one location. These are the so called Edge Management and Orchestration tools.

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‍What is an Edge Management and Orchestration tool?

To effectively manage any edge computing project, companies need a centralized edge management and orchestration tool. This tool handles provisioning, monitoring, configuration management, software updates, and security management across all edge devices and servers.

Because enterprises tend to focus on particular use-case solutions, they often overlook the need for an edge management and orchestration tool when they intend to scale. Such a tool is essential for managing all edge devices and applications as they expand.

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‍Barbara Panel for Remote Management and Monitoring of Edge Computing Deployments

Barbara Panel is a centralized management tool that facilitates the interaction with edge nodes in the field. It can be accessed using a comprehensive graphical interface or a REST API if it needs to be integrated with other management systems.

Barbara Panel can be installed in any public or private cloud, or even on-premises, and it allows to manage thousands of Edge nodes and orchestrate applications in those through a secure and reliable MQTT broker.

" Organizations aiming to leverage their edge computing efforts require a robust Edge Device Management and Application Orchestration tool to effectively monitor thousands of edge nodes across multiple locations.  David Purón - CEO at Barbara

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More precisely Barbara Panel offers the following capabilities:

1. EDGE ORCHESTRATOR: to deploy and manage multiple edge applications, both containerized and native, on thousands of edge nodes located anywhere in the world.

2. DEVICE MANAGEMENT: that covers the complete lifecycle of your Edge Nodes remotely: activate, deactivate, upgrade, operate... All while maximizing your long-term uptime and keeping them free of security vulnerabilities.

3. BATCH OPERATIONS: that group your devices hierarchically, design advanced filters, assign tags according to their needs, and operate them in batch, remotely and centrally, with a single click.

When managing thousands of devices deployed in the field, it is essential to be able to operate them in parallel, using batch commands. But the power of one command applied to thousands of devices also brings with it great responsibility. Therefore, it is necessary to preview the actions to be executed, simulate the results before executing the action and restrict these actions to users with sufficient permissions to carry them out

4. EDGE AI: to harness the power of AIoT and take the automation of systems and business processes to another level

5. EDGE DATA ANALYTICS: to store, visualize, and process any data on the Edge, or in hybrid Edge/Cloud architectures. Your data is always ready to add value to your business.

6. VPN: that connect all your devices to a single virtual network. Improve your development and maintenance processes without compromising your security.

7. TELEMETRY AND ALERTS: to monitor the health of the Edge and stay ahead of problems to ensure system continuity.

8. CLOUD CONNECTIVITY:  to easily integrate with any Cloud. Barbara is compatible with leading providers such as Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure.

9. BUSINESS INTEGRATON: you can deploy edge services and integrate them seamlessly with your enterprise systems.

Final Notes

As with any new IT initiative, getting the full benefits of edge computing requires careful planning. Companies must design an Edge Computing Infrastructure that not only meets current needs but is also takes into account future use cases and deployments.

Despite the critical role of edge computing in digital transformation, many organizations still focus on isolated use cases without a comprehensive strategy and an infrastructure. One possible solution is to collaborate with experienced partners like Barbara that provide the edge infrastructure to accelerate industries´ digital transformation and the transition to AI.

‍About Barbara

Barbara offers a secure industrial edge platform, along with centralized management to scale. With Barbara, companies turbocharge their deployments to production and leverage the full potential of AI without compromising their security and operational efficiency. Organizations can:

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1. Deploy real-time AI applications taken from legacy or next-generation distributed industrial assets.

2. Run, debug, and operate it easily for a wide range of devices, networks, and protocols.

3. Manage and protect their deployments with cybersecurity mechanisms designed according to Industry standards.

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Figure description:   From Edge Nodes, Barbara can communicate with different industrial machines and run AI applications or algorithms on the Edge node itself. These applications and algorithms can be created by the user or purchased from Barbara Marketplace, our marketplace in the cloud. The  management of both, edge nodes and e applications running on them is managed by Barbara Panel, the Edge Management and Orchestration tool for AI deployments at the Edge.

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Start deploying your apps and AI models in the Edge. Discover more about Barbara Edge Platform. Get access to a free trial now

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