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Quick Start With Local Deployment

In this guide we will:

  • Install the prerequisites and tools required to create and manage Edge Compute Networks ('ECNs')
  • Create an ECN on a local machine to demonstrate the processes and components involved in an ECN
  • Deploy a set of Microservices on our local ECN

Prerequisites​

Install potctl on Mac​

Mac users can use Homebrew:

brew tap eclipse-iofog/potctl
brew install potctl@3.0

Install potctl on Windows​

The Windows binary can be downloaded from https://storage.googleapis.com/potctl/win/3.0/potctl.exe.

Prepare Windows​

In order to use potctl to deploy an ECN locally on Windows we will need to configure Docker to run Linux containers:

Install potctl on Linux​

The Debian package can be installed like so:

curl https://packagecloud.io/install/repositories/iofog/potctl/script.deb.sh | sudo bash
sudo apt-get install potctl=3.0.0-alpha1

And similarly, the RPM package can be installed like so:

curl https://packagecloud.io/install/repositories/iofog/potctl/script.rpm.sh | sudo bash
sudo yum install potctl-3.0.0-alpha1-1.x86_64

Verify potctl Installation​

Run potctl version to verify we have successfully installed the CLI.

Deploy ioFog Locally​

We can use potctl deploy to install and provision ECN components. Here we will deploy a containerized ECN locally.

Go ahead and paste the following commands into the terminal:

echo "---
apiVersion: datasance.com/v3
kind: LocalControlPlane
metadata:
  name: ecn
spec:
  iofogUser:
    name: Quick
    surname: Start
    email: user@domain.com
    password: q1u45ic9kst563art
  controller:
    container:
      image: iofog/controller:3.0.0
---
apiVersion: datasance.com/v3
kind: LocalAgent
metadata:
  name: local-agent
spec:
  container:
    image: iofog/agent:3.0.0
" > /tmp/quick-start.yaml
potctl deploy -f /tmp/quick-start.yaml

After the deployment has successfully completed, we can verify the resources we specified in the YAML file are running on our local machine.

potctl get all

Which should output something similar to:

NAMESPACE
default

CONTROLLER      STATUS    AGE           UPTIME      ADDR             PORT
local           online    22m29s        22m35s      0.0.0.0          51121

AGENT           STATUS    AGE           UPTIME      ADDR             VERSION
local-agent     RUNNING   22m7s         22m7s       150.179.102.91   3.0.0

APPLICATION     STATUS    MICROSERVICES

MICROSERVICE    STATUS    AGENT         ROUTES      VOLUMES          PORTS

VOLUME          SOURCE    DESTINATION   PERMISSIONS	AGENTS

ROUTE           SOURCE MSVC     DEST MSVC

NB: The Agent status might say UNKNOWN for up to 30s. It is the time for the agent to report back its liveness to the controller.

The Controller acts as a control plane, it will be our main point of access and communication with our ECN. If we want to find out more about Controller, please read this.

The Agent is the component that is meant to run on our edge devices. Once it has registered itself with a Controller, the Agent will be in charge of actually pulling the microservices images and starting / stopping the microservices on our edge device. If we want to find out more about Agent, please read this.

Those components are all currently running as separate Docker containers on our local machine. We can list the active containers by running:

docker ps

Which should output something similar to:

CONTAINER ID        IMAGE                          COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                                                          NAMES
71927882293f        iofog/router:3.0.1             "/qpid-dispatch/laun…"   15 minutes ago      Up 15 minutes       0.0.0.0:5672->5672/tcp, 0.0.0.0:56721-56722->56721-56722/tcp   iofog_PJFbk3ZHjX3RkNWxwcRqzDXnKV6mLHmq
8454ca70755b        iofog/agent:3.0.0              "sh /start.sh"           15 minutes ago      Up 15 minutes                                                                      iofog-agent
dc7568ad1708        iofog/controller:3.0.0         "node /usr/local/lib…"   16 minutes ago      Up 16 minutes       0.0.0.0:51121->51121/tcp, 0.0.0.0:8008->80/tcp                 iofog-controller

Deploy Microservices​

Now that our local ECN is up, lets put it to use. The following commands will deploy a demonstration application on your ECN:

echo "---
apiVersion: datasance.com/v3
kind: Application
metadata:
  name: health-care-wearable
spec:
  microservices:
  - name: heart-rate-monitor
    agent:
      name: local-agent
      config:
        bluetoothEnabled: false
        abstractedHardwareEnabled: false
    images:
      arm: edgeworx/healthcare-heart-rate:arm-v1
      x86: edgeworx/healthcare-heart-rate:x86-v1
      registry: remote
    container:
      rootHostAccess: false
      ports: []
    config:
      test_mode: true
      data_label: Anonymous_Person
  - name: heart-rate-viewer
    agent:
      name: local-agent
    images:
      arm: edgeworx/healthcare-heart-rate-ui:arm
      x86: edgeworx/healthcare-heart-rate-ui:x86
      registry: remote
    container:
      rootHostAccess: false
      ports:
        - external: 5000
          internal: 80
          public: 5000
      env:
        - key: BASE_URL
          value: http://localhost:8080/data
  routes:
  - name: monitor-to-viewer
    from: heart-rate-monitor
    to: heart-rate-viewer" > /tmp/quick-start-app.yaml
potctl deploy -f /tmp/quick-start-app.yaml

This deploys two microservices: heart-rate-monitor and heart-rate-viewer. The former generates mock heart rate data that would normally be generated with a physical heart monitoring device, and the latter is a web application that offers a live visualisation of the generated data.

After potctl deploy -f /tmp/quick-start-app.yaml has completed, the agent will have to download each microservice image and start them.

You can follow the progress by running the command:

watch potctl get microservices

Which will output something similar to:

Every 2.0s: potctl get microservices                                                                                                                     Nehas-MacBook-Pro.local: Tue Apr  7 11:18:43 2020

NAMESPACE
default

MICROSERVICE            STATUS          AGENT           ROUTES                  VOLUMES                 PORTS
heart-rate-monitor      QUEUED          local-agent     heart-rate-viewer
heart-rate-viewer       QUEUED          local-agent                                                     5000:80

Once both microservice status are 'RUNNING', the microservices have started. We will be able to see the web application on our browser at http://localhost:5000.

Teardown​

To remove our ECN and any microservices deployed on it, we can run the following command:

potctl delete all

Next Steps​

Now that you have seen what ioFog is about, you can create a real ECN with remote hosts. Instructions are found here.

We can also try deploying other Microservices on the local ECN. We can find instructions on writing our own Microservice here and a step-by-step tutorial.