1. What is EdgeGallery?
EdgeGallery is an open-source MEC edge computing project initiated by Huawei, carriers, and vertical industry partners. Its purpose is to build a common edge computing platform that meets the “connection + computing” characteristics of the telecom industry, standardize the openness of network capabilities (especially 5G network capabilities), and simplify lifecycle processes such as MEC application development, test, migration, and running.
2.What problems does EdgeGallery solve?
EdgeGallery solves the problems of ecosystem fragmentation and small industry scale caused by inconsistent standards of carriers’ MEC edge computing platforms.
MEC is a new blue ocean market for carriers in the 5G era. With the MEC Platform, carriers can open the “connectivity + computing” capability to industry applications to obtain the value dividend of industry digitalization.
MEC is essentially a developer-oriented ICT infrastructure market, with its competitiveness based in the richness of the basic software platform and tool chain provided for application developers. Its market result depends on the richness of the application ecosystem.
In the traditional development mode, carriers cooperate with ISVs to customize the software platform. If the MEC platform also uses the traditional mode, the platform interfaces of carriers are different, and tool chains are incompatible. There are many carriers worldwide, and many carriers operate in different regions, naturally forming a fragmented market.
Applications and solutions need to be customized and developed for different platforms, resulting in huge learning and development costs. In fact, most developers cannot afford such costs, and give up or transfer to the public cloud platform as a result.
Huawei works with partners to build a public MEC platform and related tool chain through open source, with the goal to form a unified MEC standard for the entire telecom industry and expand the MEC market together.
3.What is the mission and vision of EdgeGallery?
The EdgeGallery community focuses on the MEC platform framework of the carrier network edge. It builds the basic framework of MEC edge resources, applications, security, management, and de facto standards of network openness services through open source collaboration, and implements interconnection with the public cloud. A unified MEC application ecosystem is constructed based on its compatibility with heterogeneous edge infrastructures.
4.What is the open source scope of EdgeGallery?
EdgeGallery is not only an MEP platform, but also an end-to-end solution for applications and developers. In addition to the basic MEP platform that supports application running, EdgeGallery also provides an application management system to manage the end-to-end lifecycle of applications, provides a tool chain for migrating x86 applications to ARM, and supports smooth migration and optimization of applications across platforms. For application developers, EdgeGallery provides a complete IDE and integrated verification environment for application development, meaning that application developers have a one-stop development experience. In addition, the MEP Application Store provides a standard admission verification process for applications developed by application developers.
