OpenStack Foundation releases software platform for edge computing

The OpenStack Foundation, the joint project created by NASA and Rackspace to create a freely usable Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform, has announced the initial release of StarlingX, a platform for edge computing.

StarlingX is designed for remote edge environments, offering node configuration in host, service management, and perform software updates remotely. It can also warn operators if there are any issues with the servers or the network.

The foundation says the platform is optimized for low-latency, high-performance applications in edge network scenarios and is primarily aimed at carrier networking, industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), and Internet of Things (IoT).

StarlingX is based on key technologies Wind River developed for its Titanium Cloud product. In May of this year, Intel, which owns Wind River, announced plans to turn over Titanium Cloud to OpenStack and deliver the StarlingX platform.

StarlingX is controlled through RESTful APIs and has been integrated with a number of popular open-source projects, including OpenStack, Ceph, and Kubernetes.

The software handles everything from hardware configuration down to host recovery and everything in between, such as configuration, host, service, and inventory management services, along with live migration of workloads.

“When it comes to edge, the debates on applicable technologies are endless. And to give answers, it is crucial to be able to blend together and manage all the virtual machine (VM) and container-based workloads and bare-metal environments, which is exactly what you get from StarlingX,” wrote Glenn Seiler, vice president of product management and strategy at Wind River, in a blog post announcing StarlingX’s availbility.

“Beyond being an integration project, StarlingX also delivers new services to fill the gaps in the open-source ecosystem to fulfill the strict requirements of edge use cases and scenarios throughout all the segments of the industry,” he added.

StarlingX fills an essential need in edge computing

It’s something of a missing link in the new field of edge computing. There are hardware providers such as Vapor IO and Schneider Electric, but they use their own home-brewed software stack. With StarlingX, companies can set up their own hardware configurations and now have a software option.

And even though it’s a 1.0 product, StarlingX is built on some very mature technology, starting with Wind River and extending to OpenStack. OpenStack is the world’s most widely deployed open-source infrastructure software, used in thousands of private and public cloud deployments and running across more than 10 million physical CPU cores.