NetFoundry’s embedded networking service for edge compute is now commercially available. The company, which uses SDN to create private overlay networks, has partnered with Supermicro, IMS Evolve, Micron, NodeWeaver, and others to build a platform for edge computing with zero-trust networking.

The challenges that enterprises face in managing edge computing and IoT is understated, said NetFoundry CEO Galeal Zino. He likens the demands and complexity to that of private data centers, which of course led to the rise of cloud adoption.

“Edge compute is like a private data center but worse, like way worse,” he said. “You don’t have sophisticated IT teams, tooling process systems, you don’t even necessarily have the right environment in terms of cooling, and logistics, and security.”

Edge compute for IoT, which is driving the bulk of interest and adoption of edge computing, is “really, really difficult and that’s why some folks are having a hard time getting off the ground or scaling beyond kind of pilots and prototypes.”

By enabling a “cloudification of the edge” with automation, agility, and a centralized control, Zino argues that NetFoundry is delivering a “top bet” from a strategic perspective in a relatively nascent market. The approach allows enterprises to control private, cloud-orchestrated SDNs and leave the management of the underlying networking infrastructure to NetFoundry.

“Our endpoints enable the administrator to essentially deploy in a manner that makes the most sense to them” without requiring the need to deploy a separate server or router to enable edge computing, Zino explained. Those endpoints can be an app, a container, or a virtual machine (VM) that can be registered and authenticated on NetFoundry’s private SDN that enables overlay networks.

Once an app is compiled on NetFoundry’s SDK it can be deployed on an embedded system, an IoT device, or an edge compute device and then natively integrate with the company’s zero-trust SDN powered overlay networks. All of the controllers and data plane reside in NetFoundry’s network cloud, which then manages separate instances dedicated to each of its enterprise customers. NetFoundry’s partnership with EdgeConnex also gives its customers the ability to extend those private networks to public hyperscale clouds.

NetFoundry’ edge compute service is in production with about five companies and more are in pilot stage, according to Zino. The platform is supported in Microsoft Azure, Azure Virtual WAN, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Digital Ocean, and the early interest is coming from the cost side of businesses, he explained.

“When you show a cost base use case for things like preventative maintenance, you know, those business cases tend to go,” he said. Although he readily admits that NetFoundry has a low sample size, it’s also starting to see traction in retail and manufacturing.

There is, however, a point where edge computing is a losing proposition. “I think it’s ridiculous to run edge compute in most production use cases today if you’re not really doing any processing on that edge,” Zino said. It’s use cases like video surveillance inferencing in a retail environment that deliver a clear business outcome and justification for the investment in edge computing, he explained.

“You better be able to manage a distributed application, but you better not just put a box in a network and call it a day. The application has to be able to process the local stuff on the edge server, send the other stuff to the cloud, and be able to overflow in many cases between multiple compute resources,” Zino said. “It’s not a walk in the park.”