ZEDEDA Edge Computing Case Study

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Introduction

This case study illustrates how a distributed industrial organization uses ZEDEDA Edge Infrastructure Services to manage edge computing infrastructure at scale. It uses a hypothetical company called Grid-Connect to walk through the platform’s core concepts in a real-world context.

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About Grid-Connect

Grid-Connect is a wind turbine manufacturer with wind farms across the United States. Each farm contains hundreds of turbines in remote, geographically distributed locations. Their most important business assets — the turbines themselves — require secure, reliable remote management. On-site IT expertise is not available at these locations. Grid-Connect uses Edge Infrastructure Services to increase the security and reliability of their turbine management. Their IT department repurposes existing industrial PCs by installing EVE-OS (Edge Virtualization Engine) on them, then uses existing networks to onboard and manage the devices as nodes.

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Architecture Overview

The following diagram shows how Grid-Connect uses Edge Infrastructure Services to orchestrate all their nodes across their wind farms. Grid-Connect’s deployment spans several layers: Business assets: Wind turbines that must be remotely managed. Each turbine has a corresponding node. Sensors: Over one hundred sensors per turbine measure vibration, temperature, humidity, audio, and other parameters that indicate mechanical health. Networks: Grid-Connect uses multiple connectivity methods — LTE (cellular) for remote locations, Wi-Fi where available, and wired LAN in some farms. The platform operates reliably across all of these, and local operations continue even when remote connectivity is temporarily unavailable. Nodes: Industrial PCs running EVE-OS. Each turbine has at least one onboarded node in Edge Infrastructure Services. ZEDEDA supports both AMD64 (x86-64) and ARM64 hardware architectures. Applications: Grid-Connect has developed several custom applications deployed to their nodes:

• A turbine audio analysis application that records sound near the turbine shaft, processes it with machine learning algorithms, and predicts maintenance needs.
• An optimum output regulator that measures environmental parameters and adjusts turbine controls to maximize energy output.
• A maintenance scheduler that collects sensor data and generates optimized maintenance schedules.

Each application has different I/O and network port requirements. Edge Infrastructure Services provides fine-grained control over which applications access which hardware adapters on each node. External connections: Grid-Connect’s nodes connect to third-party cloud providers and on-premises servers through ZEDEDA. The platform enables freedom of choice for external integration — customers are not locked into a specific cloud provider.

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Platform Usage

Grid-Connect uses both the console GUI and ZCLI to manage their fleet:

• Projects: IT administrators create projects for each wind farm, grouping hundreds of nodes by geography. User roles are scoped to these projects, so administrators responsible for a specific farm can only access assets within their region.
• Users and roles: Role-based access control allows Grid-Connect to segment their team by responsibility. Application developers use the console to explore the Marketplace. Operations teams use ZCLI and the API to script routine provisioning and management tasks.
• Automation: ZCLI and the ZEDEDA API allow Grid-Connect to script onboarding, application deployment, and monitoring at scale — without requiring on-site expertise at any of their remote locations.

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Key Takeaways

This deployment illustrates several characteristics of Edge Infrastructure Services that apply across industries:

• The platform is hardware-agnostic. Grid-Connect can mix device manufacturers, hardware architectures, and connectivity types within the same enterprise.
• Projects and role-based access control allow large organizations to distribute operational responsibility while maintaining centralized oversight.
• Applications can be deployed and updated remotely across hundreds of nodes simultaneously, without dispatching technicians to remote sites.
• The platform is agnostic to the type and variety of business assets being managed — the same approach applies to manufacturing assembly lines, retail inventory systems, logistics fleets, and other distributed infrastructure.

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Next Steps