Vapor IO, the definitive platform for edge clouds, today announced Vapor Kinetic Edge, a technical architecture for combining multiple Vapor Edge micro data centers into a virtual data center that can span an entire city and deliver a record-breaking twelve or more nines of availability. Vapor IO also today announced the Vapor Edge Module (VEM), a self-contained, standalone micro modular data center specifically designed to support edge co-location environments. These two advancements, combined with Vapor IO's existing edge products, complete a "cloud down" approach for delivering true cloud computing to the very edge of the last mile network.

"The edge is not a box. It's a highly-interconnected suite of hardware, software and connectivity working together in concert," said Cole Crawford, founder & CEO of Vapor IO. "Our Kinetic Edge architecture and the Vapor Edge Module deliver true edge cloud by being part of a complete portfolio of products, including our flagship Vapor Chamber, all of which work together to deliver on customer needs. It's not enough to provide bent sheet metal. You need to tie all of the components together with thoughtful engineering and software so you can algorithmically and autonomically orchestrate the edge."

The Kinetic Edge: Combining Multiple Edge Sites into a City-Sized Virtual Data Center

Vapor IO's Kinetic Edge is a new kind of infrastructure architecture that uses software and high-speed connectivity to combine multiple micro data center facilities into a single "logical data center." For developers and operators, it presents a geographically-dispersed collection of micro data centers as a single virtual facility with multiple availability zones.

"We are deploying Kinetic Edge right now," said Crawford. "We start by placing multiple Vapor edge data centers in a geographic region, spaced 15 to 20 Km apart. We then connect them with high speed fiber so that our industry-redefining software can stitch these sites together into a highly-reliable and customizable edge presence that can span an entire city or region."

An Architecture Built for Edge

Vapor IO's Kinetic Edge architecture creates city-sized, software-controlled virtual data centers comprised of many micro data centers meshed together with high-speed fiber, spanning an entire geographic region. Developers use the Vapor Edge APIs to build edge native applications that respond to changing environmental conditions, delivering software-based high-resiliency failover, real time load balancing, workload migration for devices in motion, and so on.

A Kinetic Edge consists of:

• Multiple Vapor Chambers or Vapor Edge Modules, spaced 10 Km to 20 Km apart
• High-speed site-to-site fiber connectivity with redundant paths
• Vapor Edge Controllers in each location that manage the fiber connectivity and present software APIs that expose edge conditions in real time
• Software for IP aggregation at the edge, as well as for site-to-site handoff of IP addresses to support devices in motion, as well as for migrating network traffic for load balancing and failover
• Ingestible telemetry for application and container orchestration integration

The Highly-Available Edge

Traditional data centers are made more resilient by expensively replicating critical systems at each site. For example, a 2N+1 site would require three of everything-generators, backup batteries, cabling, cooling systems, and so on. A Kinetic Edge installation with no redundancy at individual sites can seamlessly combine sites to exceed the availability of the most reliable Tier 4 data centers. A Kinetic Edge with five sites can offer twelve nines of availability (99.9999999999% uptime), without the costs of replicating critical infrastructure at each site. This level of reliability is achieved by distributing risk across all sites in the Kinetic Edge and using software to monitor environmental conditions and replicate workloads and data so that there is no single point of failure.

Vapor Edge Module: Deploying a Multi-Tenant Edge with an All-in-One Micro Modular Data Center

The Vapor Edge Module (VEM) is a completely self-contained, containerized edge data center that is factory-assembled and delivered as a single unit. It is designed to enable weather-hardened, multi-tenant edge locations where the economics of shared infrastructure creates a long-term value proposition. Built around the highly efficient Vapor Chamber design, each VEM supports up to 150 Kw of IT load in a small, efficient footprint. The prefabricated design incorporates all of the critical data center systems, including power distribution, cooling, fire suppression, security, and racking systems for IT equipment. Additionally, the VEM supports an adaptive ‘blindmate' cooling plant that allows for chilled water, direct expansion, or adiabatic cooling depending on the given location and climate.

Highly-Secure for Multi-Tenant Environments

In multi-tenant and colocation environments, service personnel from different organizations require access to their equipment (and only their equipment). The VEM completely isolates all IT equipment behind a physical and electronic security wall. Service personnel enter a small access alcove, via biometric and/or other security authentication mechanisms, and are only allowed direct access to their hardware. The IT equipment resides inside a Vapor Chamber that rests on a motorized turntable which can rotate 180 degrees in each direction in order to present the authenticated rack to the service access alcove. This both increases security and reduces the amount of space needed for housing and servicing the equipment. Each rack can be further secured by up to four 9-12 RU locking doors, which also require security authentication to open, and allow tenants to lease capacity in partial rack increments.

Autonomic and Software-Driven

Vapor IO software continuously monitors the critical environment and makes automatic adjustments based on actual IT load, providing for greater efficiency. It can additionally issue warnings based on the status of sensors integrated into the VEM. The software also supports remote operations and security via an API built atop OpenDCRE. A human-friendly web-based application for operators connects directly to the Vapor Edge Module, making it easy to monitor multiple locations, create dashboards and reports, and perform enhanced remote hands operations.

Built for the edge

Vapor Edge Modules are easy to deploy, compact, cost effective and highly secure. Factory-assembled for direct delivery to edge locations, each VEM arrives as a single unit that can be placed directly on a concrete slab or piers. A fully-operational VEM can be installed at an edge site quickly-in timeframes measured in minutes, not months. Because security, remote operations and multi-tenant capabilities come standard, the Vapor Edge Module will appeal to landowners, building owners, infrastructure providers and other entities looking to build out an edge presence quickly.

For more about Vapor IO and its solutions, please visit www.vapor.io.