Add StarlingX 4.0 blog #89
Conversation
Signed-off-by: Ildiko Vancsa <ildiko.vancsa@gmail.com>
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| The project is approaching a half-year release cycle and this article will give you some insights about what the contributors were working on during the first half of this year. | ||
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| As the StarlingX platform is fine tuned for edge computing and IoT use cases there are several requirements it has to fulfill in areas such as performance, robustness and security which were in focus during the 4.0 release cycle as well. This blog post will give you insights to some of the new features and components that got integrated into the platform. |
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The StarlingX platform is fine tuned for edge computing and IoT use cases and the contributors focused on requirements for performance, robustness and security goals during the 4.0 release cycle. This blog post will give you insights on some of the new features and components that were integrated into the platform.
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| As the StarlingX platform is fine tuned for edge computing and IoT use cases there are several requirements it has to fulfill in areas such as performance, robustness and security which were in focus during the 4.0 release cycle as well. This blog post will give you insights to some of the new features and components that got integrated into the platform. | ||
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| Security and proper isolation are crucial in an edge environment as the hardware and software components are located outside of the safety of traditional data centers. This can put challenges on traditional container runtimes as they are sharing the host kernel and use namespaces for separation which can be problematic in case one of the containers gets compromised. There are multiple solutions to this one of which is to use [Kata Containers](https://katacontainers.io) which is a container runtime that provides a fusion between virtual machines and containers. You can now use this project in StarlingX as a runtime that is run by Kubernetes. |
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Security and proper isolation are crucial in an edge environment since the hardware and software components are located outside of the safety of traditional data centers. This can put challenges on traditional container runtimes, as they share the host kernel and use namespaces for separation, which can be problematic if one of the containers is compromised. There are multiple solutions to this, one of which is to use Kata Containers, a container runtime that provides a fusion between virtual machines and containers. You can now use this project in StarlingX as a runtime that is run by Kubernetes.
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| Security and proper isolation are crucial in an edge environment as the hardware and software components are located outside of the safety of traditional data centers. This can put challenges on traditional container runtimes as they are sharing the host kernel and use namespaces for separation which can be problematic in case one of the containers gets compromised. There are multiple solutions to this one of which is to use [Kata Containers](https://katacontainers.io) which is a container runtime that provides a fusion between virtual machines and containers. You can now use this project in StarlingX as a runtime that is run by Kubernetes. | ||
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| To go a step further the StarlingX community has also enabled [Time Sensitive Networking(TSN)](https://1.ieee802.org/tsn/#Published_TSN_Standards) for workloads running in Kata Containers. This is an important functionality as it provides support for determinism in delivering time-sensitive traffic with low and bounded latency while normal traffic is being carried through the same network as well. This is used by applications in industrial IOT, video delivery and other ultra-low latency use cases. As the functionality has dependencies on newer versions of the Linux kernel you will need to perform some configuration steps that the [relevant documentation](https://docs.starlingx.io/developer_resources/stx_tsn_in_kata.html) can guide you through. |
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To go a step further, the StarlingX community has also enabled Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) for workloads running in Kata Containers. This is an important capability that provides support for determinism in delivering time-sensitive traffic with low and bounded latency, while normal traffic is also carried through the same network. This is used by applications in industrial IOT, video delivery, and other ultra-low latency use cases. As the functionality has dependencies on newer versions of the Linux kernel, you will need to perform some configuration steps that the relevant documentation can guide you through.
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| To go a step further the StarlingX community has also enabled [Time Sensitive Networking(TSN)](https://1.ieee802.org/tsn/#Published_TSN_Standards) for workloads running in Kata Containers. This is an important functionality as it provides support for determinism in delivering time-sensitive traffic with low and bounded latency while normal traffic is being carried through the same network as well. This is used by applications in industrial IOT, video delivery and other ultra-low latency use cases. As the functionality has dependencies on newer versions of the Linux kernel you will need to perform some configuration steps that the [relevant documentation](https://docs.starlingx.io/developer_resources/stx_tsn_in_kata.html) can guide you through. | ||
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| Security is also crucial when you manage your hardware infrastructure for instance when you boot or restart the servers that are part of your deployment. Redfish provides well-known standards in this area to provide solutions to this challenge. StarlingX now supports the Redfish Virtual Media Controller that provides you with the option to use a secure BMC-based ISO image boot process. |
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Security is also crucial when you manage your hardware infrastructure, for instance, when you boot or restart the servers that are part of your deployment. Redfish provides well-known standards in this area to provide solutions to this challenge. StarlingX now supports the Redfish Virtual Media Controller that provides you with the option to use a secure BMC-based ISO image boot process.
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| Automation is highly important in edge computing use cases due to a lot of locations being remote with limited possibility for maintenance. StarlingX now provides a [certification manager](https://docs.starlingx.io/configuration/cert_config.html) that enables automated certification issuance as well as monitoring the expiration dates and giving the possibility to auto-renew. | ||
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| To provide more flexibility for users the community is working on providing support for external systems in areas where tools exist already. One example to this is backends used during authentication and authorization. You can now configure StarlingX to use Windows Active Directory for authentication of the Kubernetes API. |
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To provide more flexibility for users, the community is developing support for external systems in areas where tools exist already. An example of this is backends used during authentication and authorization. You can now configure StarlingX to use Windows Active Directory for authentication of the Kubernetes API.
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| Kubernetes is also supported now in the [backup and restore](https://docs.starlingx.io/developer_resources/backup_restore.html) functionality of the StarlingX platform, you can now configure it for containerized workloads. | ||
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| As you may already know StarlingX has a lot of components that you can combine in the configuration that fulfills your needs the best. In the past the build process was monolithic therefore in case of any changes you had to rebuild all components to get the updated image. Now there is support for a [layered build](https://docs.starlingx.io/developer_resources/layered_build_guide.html) where the tool decomposes the system into layers which then can be built independently saving you time as well as resources. |
There was a problem hiding this comment.
As you may already know, StarlingX has many components that you can combine in the configuration that best fulfills your needs. In the past, the build process was monolithic and if any changes were needed, you had to rebuild all components to get the updated image. Now there is support for a layered build where the tool decomposes the system into layers, which then can be built independently -- saving you time as well as resources.
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| As you may already know StarlingX has a lot of components that you can combine in the configuration that fulfills your needs the best. In the past the build process was monolithic therefore in case of any changes you had to rebuild all components to get the updated image. Now there is support for a [layered build](https://docs.starlingx.io/developer_resources/layered_build_guide.html) where the tool decomposes the system into layers which then can be built independently saving you time as well as resources. | ||
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| As in all release cycles there are a few components that have new versions available. As part of upgrades you will have a newer Linux kernel in the platform, 4.18 and the latest release of OpenStack called Ussuri is also available. |
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As in all release cycles, there are a few components that have new versions available. When you install R4.0, you will have a newer Linux kernel in the platform, 4.18, and the latest release of OpenStack called Ussuri is also available.
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When you install R4.0, you will have the 4.18 Linux kernel and the Ussuri release of OpenStack.
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| As in all release cycles there are a few components that have new versions available. As part of upgrades you will have a newer Linux kernel in the platform, 4.18 and the latest release of OpenStack called Ussuri is also available. | ||
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| For the complete list of updates and new features in StarlingX 4.0 check out the [release notes](https://docs.starlingx.io/releasenotes/r4_release.html) and further [documentation](https://docs.starlingx.io) of the project. |
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For the complete list of updates and new features in StarlingX R4.0, check out the release notes and the project documentation.
Signed-off-by: Ildiko Vancsa <ildiko.vancsa@gmail.com>
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Thanks Saul and Mary, I fixed all your comments I hope. :) |
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| To go a step further the StarlingX community has also enabled [Time Sensitive Networking(TSN)](https://1.ieee802.org/tsn/#Published_TSN_Standards) for workloads running in Kata Containers. This is an important functionality as it provides support for determinism in delivering time-sensitive traffic with low and bounded latency while normal traffic is being carried through the same network as well. This is used by applications in industrial IOT, video delivery and other ultra-low latency use cases. As the functionality has dependencies on newer versions of the Linux kernel you will need to perform some configuration steps that the [relevant documentation](https://docs.starlingx.io/developer_resources/stx_tsn_in_kata.html) can guide you through. | ||
| To go a step further, the StarlingX community has also enabled [Time Sensitive Networking(TSN)](https://1.ieee802.org/tsn/#Published_TSN_Standards) for workloads running in Kata Containers. This is an important capability that provides support for determinism in delivering time-sensitive traffic with low and bounded latency, while normal traffic is also carried through the same network. This is used by applications in industrial IOT, video delivery, and other ultra-low latency use cases. As the functionality has dependencies on newer versions of the Linux kernel, you will need to perform some configuration steps that the [relevant documentation](https://docs.starlingx.io/developer_resources/stx_tsn_in_kata.html) can guide you through. |
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| For the complete list of updates and new features in StarlingX 4.0 check out the [release notes](https://docs.starlingx.io/releasenotes/r4_release.html) and further [documentation](https://docs.starlingx.io) of the project. | ||
| For the complete list of updates and new features in StarlingX R4.0, check out the [release notes](https://docs.starlingx.io/releasenotes/r4_release.html) and the [project documentation](https://docs.starlingx.io) of the project. |
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nit: delete " of the project" at the end of the sentence
Signed-off-by: Ildiko Vancsa <ildiko.vancsa@gmail.com>
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Fixed the remaining nits and Bruce's comments from the mail thread. |
Signed-off-by: Ildiko Vancsa ildiko.vancsa@gmail.com