Vapor IO, creators of the Kinetic Edge and the leading provider of tower-connected edge colocation and interconnection services, today launched the Kinetic Edge Alliance (KEA), alongside deployment partners Federated Wireless, Linode, MobiledgeX, Packet and StackPath and technical partners Alef Mobitech, Detecon International, Hitachi Vantara, New Continuum Data Centers, Pluribus Networks, and Seagate Technology. The KEA is an industry alliance of leading software, hardware, networking and integration companies committed to driving the broad adoption of compute, storage, access and interconnection at the edge of the cellular network, simplifying edge computing for the masses.

"Delivering edge computing at scale, across the entire United States, requires a great deal of collaboration," said Cole Crawford, founder and CEO of Vapor IO. "The Kinetic Edge Alliance provides the vehicle for delivering nationwide edge computing, removing the guesswork from edge deployment and operations that exists today. The Alliance will accelerate the rollout of edge computing, delivering a platform for wireless operators and application providers to deliver new edge-enabled products and services to customers."

"By pre-integrating our CBRS controller with the Kinetic Edge, we are able to ensure last mile wireless connectivity in every one of the Alliance's locations, eventually spanning the entire country," said Iyad Tarazi, president and CEO, Federated Wireless. "This will unleash a tsunami of edge-native and edge-enhanced applications for Private Networks. Nothing like this has ever been created before and we're proud to be a part of this movement."

The Kinetic Edge Alliance

The Kinetic Edge Alliance combines critical infrastructure deployments with enabling edge technologies and expertise. Targeting the top 30 US metro markets which cover nearly 50% of the US population, the Alliance seeks to establish critical mass for nationwide edge computing.

In 2019, the Alliance will focus on the first six Kinetic Edge markets: Chicago, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles and Seattle. Chicago, the first Kinetic Edge city, has two Kinetic Edge sites online today with a third to come online later in Q1.

KEA Deployment Partners

Deployment Partners will be jointly rolling out equipment and services across the top 30 major metropolitan US markets, beginning with the first six markets in 2019. The Alliance seeks to deploy, in lockstep, all of the key hardware and software infrastructure components that will enable commercial-grade edge computing at scale. The combination of technologies brought together by KEA Deployment Partners ensures a uniform infrastructure platform that makes it easy to build edge applications and deploy them to multiple markets. The founding Deployment Partners are (in alpha order):

• Federated Wireless: Federated Wireless will bring software and systems for delivering 4G and 5G wireless services over newly-available CBRS spectrum to all Kinetic Edge locations, including a large set of pre-integrated wireless access points, end devices, and network functionality suppliers through its diverse partner program.

• Linode: As the leading cloud for over 800,000 developers worldwide, Linode will extend its cloud computing infrastructure at Kinetic Edge locations. This partnership will enable next generation low-latency applications to operate at the edge of the wireless network. Developers and their teams will enjoy a new level of performance and simplicity to bring their cloud driven experiences to life.
• MobiledgeX: MobiledgeX will provide developers with automated workload orchestration tooling for the provisioning and management of applications at the edge location nearest to a requesting device. It is a seamless extension of the modern development and deployment practices that developers are using today. The developer access to a network of this scale and distribution is completely new, and so are the application and device experiences that are being created.
• Packet: Leading bare-metal cloud provider Packet is committed to helping software developers deploy and operate edge workloads. Starting with a flagship Kinetic Edge deployment in Chicago, Packet will continue its mission of helping developer-driven companies deploy physical infrastructure at global scale, and at the edge.
• StackPath: StackPath will extend its global platform of edge computing services to the Kinetic Edge, making it easy for developers to deploy containers and VMs at the edge of the cellular network, as well as also deploy serverless scripts via the company's EdgeEngine^TM.
• Vapor IO: Vapor IO is committed to building tower-connected edge data centers across each of the 30 target markets, offering purpose-built edge colocation, interconnection and fiber-based networking to its partners and customers. These sites form the foundation of the Kinetic Edge, Vapor's innovative nationwide network of edge data centers.

KEA Technical Partners

KEA Technical Partners participate in Kinetic Edge deployments and enhance the ecosystem by making their unique expertise and enabling technologies available to Kinetic Edge deployments, offering to collaborate with end users and Deployment Partners as they bring new edge infrastructure services to life. The founding Technical Partners are (in alpha order):

• Alef Mobitech: Alef Mobitech has developed an edge architecture that makes it easy to deploy MEC (Mutli-Access Edge Computing) applications. By integrating tightly into the telco networks, Alef Mobitech accelerates the building and deployment of edge applications that benefit cellular operators.
• Detecon International: Detecon International, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, will support operators in sustainably improving their competitiveness and performance across the entire value chain with the help of innovative technologies such as edge, accelerating their digital transformation and evolution to 5G.
• Hitachi Vantara: Hitachi Vantara, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd., delivers data center and IoT expertise for the Kinetic Edge, and provides technologies and solutions for data center infrastructure, edge-to-cloud data governance and data-driven insights. Hitachi's Lumada specifically provides the capabilities to connect, collect, analyze, store and act on data from disparate data sources, allowing customers to make decisions in near real-time.

• New Continuum: New Continuum will cross-connect its West Chicago data center with the Kinetic Edge to provide local colocation capacity as well as a software-enabled Internet Exchange Point (IXP). Additionally, New Continuum will deploy Open 19 IT equipment in Kinetic Edge Locations, supporting development and production environments with a pay-as-you-go business model.
• Pluribus Networks: Pluribus has created a next-generation network fabric for distributed cloud that can span multiple Kinetic Edge (and non-Kinetic Edge) sites, with the ability to manage them as one fabric that is able to stretch geographically with fabric-wide automation, multi-tenancy, granular telemetry and network slicing, with no latency penalty.
• Seagate: Seagate, the world's leading provider of data management technologies, will provide technical blueprints and deployment support for end users and partners who require storage at the edge.

Growth and Collaboration

The Alliance provides its members access to a global networking community that will grow to hundreds of members, connecting edge computing stakeholders with end users and customers in a collaborative environment. The Alliance will also collaborate with the State of the Edge project, helping to advance the group's vendor-neutral educational mission, as well as its relationship with Edgecon, the leading series of edge-focused events that include Edgecon Vegas, Edgecon Aspen, and Edgecon Barcelona.