Prerequisites¶
The Industrial Edge Runtime (IERT) requires some packages to be present in the Linux system which are outlined under Linux Dependencies. Furthermore, the runtime itself requires some system resources for its operation, as well as additional resources for each running app as described under Resource requirements.
Linux Dependencies¶
Docker¶
The primary dependency required by the Industrial Edge Runtime is Docker version 20.10.5.
Note
We support all docker providers (e.g. docker.io | docker-ce | docker-engine | moby-engine).
Compatibility of Docker versions¶
The following table shows the compatibility information affected by the Docker base images used for the Industrial Edge Runtime. The minimum version requirements have been tested by Industrial Edge as shown.
| IEDK Version | Docker Version |
|---|---|
| <= 1.16.x | >= 1.18.9 |
| >= 1.17.x | >= 20.10.5 |
Reverse proxy (nginx)¶
The Industrial Edge Runtime expects a proxy in the host system that terminates TLS and forwards calls to APIs of the runtime as well as to apps running on the Edge Device. Industrial Edge is currently using NGINX for this purpose. The necessary configuration settings for nginx, such as the forwarding rules, are provided through the IE Device Kit API (see The Edge Device for more details).
We are providing burst rate as 100 and limit as 10000 r/s to support 10 r/ms which are alligned with recommended best practices.
The following matrix shows the compatibility between the edge-iot-core_*.deb package and the NGINX version installed on the host.
| edge-iot-core_*.deb Version | NGINX Version |
|---|---|
| <= 1.19.x | <= 1.25.x |
| >= 1.20.x | >= 1.18.x |
Forward proxy (redsocks)¶
The Inudstrial Edge Runtime leverages redsocks to provide transparent access to Internet resources for apps without having to deal with proxy settings inside the app itself. This is done by intercepting outgoing communication and redirecting the communication to the proxy which is configured by the customer for the installation.
Resource requirements¶
Runtime¶
The runtime is not specifically optimized for minimal footprint, that means there are also no hard numbers available about the minimum requirements. Using some rough measurements, the runtime itself requires a few 100 MB of RAM and disk space. However, that does not include any system components, such as the reverse proxy. Furthermore, consider that Siemens is currently working on additional features for Edge Devices. Especially security features that might increase the footprint during upcoming releases, such as a rule engine for controlling access from apps of other system components.
Depending on the product, you might also want to include some apps as essential parts of the system, for example adapters for accessing field devices. The resources required by these apps must also be considered when calculating the overall footprint respectively free resources for apps.
Apps¶
The exact amount of resources required by each app depends on the app and can be customized by the App Developer during the publication. To provide a way to roughly estimate how many apps can run on an Edge Device, Siemens analyzed the apps that are currently in development and extracted the average resource consumption per app.
Note:
The average resources consumption may change over time as additional apps will be available.
Siemens calculates with the following average quantities for app resource requirements:
- 0.5 CPU
- 512 MB of RAM
- 4 GB of disk space for the app image
- 10 GB additional disk space for persistent app data storage
- 100 kBit of network bandwidth (in/out)