• About Us
  • Partnership Opportunities
  • Privacy Policy

Data Center Frontier

Charting the future of data centers and cloud computing.

  • Cloud
    • Hyperscale
  • Colo
    • Site Selection
    • Interconnection
  • Energy
    • Sustainability
  • Cooling
  • Technology
    • Internet of Things
    • AI & Machine Learning
    • Edge Computing
    • Virtual Reality
    • Autonomous Cars
    • 5G Wireless
    • Satellites
  • Design
    • Servers
    • Storage
    • Network
  • Voices
  • Podcast
  • White Papers
  • Resources
    • COVID-19
    • Events
    • Newsletter
    • Companies
    • Data Center 101
  • Jobs
You are here: Home / Internet of Things / Vapor IO Forms Alliance to Move Faster on Edge Deployments

Vapor IO Forms Alliance to Move Faster on Edge Deployments

By Rich Miller - February 13, 2019

Vapor IO Forms Alliance to Move Faster on Edge Deployments

A Vapor Chamber colocation enclosure inside a Kinetic Edge facility in Chicago. The round design is a distinctive element of Vapor IO's design. (Photo: Vapor IO)

LinkedinTwitterFacebookSubscribe
Mail

Edge computing isn’t a single technology, but a number of hardware and software technologies that will work together to support new services and faster data transfer. It’s not always easy for customers and users to see how it will all come together.

That’s why edge specialist Vapor IO has organized the Kinetic Edge Alliance, a group of hardware, software and networking companies that will collaborate on integrated edge solutions.

The Alliance “provides the vehicle for delivering nationwide edge computing, removing the guesswork from edge deployment and operations that exists today,” said Cole Crawford, the founder and CEO of Vapor IO. “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.”

Vapor IO is creating a distributed network of edge colocation sites, housed in micro modular data centers that can be deployed at key points on the network, including telecom towers and antenna sites. The Kinetic Edge is Vapor IO’s network design, which uses both wired and wireless connections to create a reliable, low-latency network of colocation sites.

The company has deployed its first two edge units in Chicago, and says it will deploy to an additional five markets with its alliance partners in 2019. The Kinetic Edge Alliance (KEA) plans to eventually deploy infrastructure in the top 30 American markets, supporting edge computing services that can reach 50 percent of the U.S. population.

Beyond Chicago, the KEA’s 2019 plans feature deployments in Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles and Seattle. The rollout plans suggest that early edge demand will focus on boosting infrastructure density in cities.

“This is an ecosystem opportunity,” Crawford said. “Delivering edge computing at scale, across the entire United States, requires a great deal of collaboration. We know what the building blocks are. Our approach has been to forge partnerships and make this a more collaborative opportunity for everyone.”

Two Categories of Partners

The Kinetic Edge Alliance features two types of partners. Deployment Partners have committed to jointly rolling out equipment and services in Kinetic Edge markets, ensuring a uniform infrastructure platform that makes it easy to build edge applications and deploy them to multiple markets. These partners include Packet, Federated Wireless, StackPath, Linode and MobiledgeX.

Technical Partners support Kinetic Edge partners and end users as they deploy new edge infrastructure services. KEA technical partners include Alef Mobitech, Detecon International, Hitachi Vantara, New Continuum Data Centers, Pluribus Networks, and Seagate Technology.

Free Resource from Data Center Frontier White Paper Library

Gaming
From Console to Cloud
This white paper from Iron Mountain explores the current challenges, drivers, and opportunities for gaming digital infrastructure.
We always respect your privacy and we never sell or rent our list to third parties. By downloading this White Paper you are agreeing to our terms of service. You can opt out at any time.

Get this PDF emailed to you.

“By enabling our tech partners, we get to tell a far more holistic story for partners with reference architectures,” said Crawford. “This is the power of this alliance.”

One example is StackPath, a company founded by Lance Crosby, the entrepreneur who built SoftLayer into a cloud powerhouse before selling it to IBM. StackPath helps clients deploy edge solutions using containers, virtual machines and serverless scripting.

“The edge today is analogous to the early days of cloud, and education on the technology and proximity is key to mass adoption,” said Crosby, the CEO of StackPath. “Joining the Kinetic Edge Alliance will help with both and allow us scale even more quickly and take even more people to the edge.”

Another cloud veteran with high hopes for the KEA is Jason Hoffman, who was CTO of early cloud player Joyent and is now CEO of MobiledgeX, an edge-focused subsidiary of Deutsche Telecom.

“Now is the time to begin adopting the next wave of growth as we create one global mobile edge for all to use,” said Hoffman. “In the USA, the KEA enables a known timeline to move from experimentation today to full market coverage tomorrow.”

The alliance also includes two data center operators. Linode is a growing cloud service supporting 800,000 developers worldwide, and will extend its cloud infrastructure at Kinetic Edge locations.

New Continuum Data Centers will cross-connect its Chicago-area data center with the Kinetic Edge to provide local colocation capacity as well as a software-enabled Internet Exchange Point (IXP). New Continuum will also deploy Open 19 equipment in Kinetic Edge Locations, supporting development and production environments with a pay-as-you-go business model.

Software is Remaking Digital Infrastructure

The goal is to create an edge ecosystem that uses the power of software to simplify deploying applications in many places.

“The world is moving toward a completely software-centric paradigm,” said Ganesh Sundaram, founder and CEO of Alef Mobitech. “The data center strategy for the edge Internet, as we see it, consists of multiple tiers. There will be multiple tiers of data centers. We can accomplish all this without changing the radio network or the cloud.”

As we’ve previously noted, edge computing is not a single technology, but a phrase that describes several layers of infrastructure, some of which are refinements of existing models. Edge infrastructure is a response to new technologies – such as autonomous vehicles and distributed AI applications – that require low latency and close proximity to users. These technologies are shaping the future of Internet infrastructure,

It’s a task that includes the telecom infrastructure for the rollout of the new low-latency 5G wireless network, as well as data center infrastructure to house servers and storage hardware for applications – as well as the analytics to enable a new layer of intelligent, real-time services.

A Vapor Edge Module with a Hangar drone system mounted on the top of the modular data center. (Image: Vapor IO)

Crawford envisions Vapor IO playing a key role in that edge revolution, providing critical infrastructure while enabling its KEA partners and customers.

“We’re a cardiovascular system,” said Crawford. “There’s a whole nervous system that does a whole other range of things. The edge is not brick-and-mortar colocation. It’s software-centric. Software can be highly automated, and we enable that use case for automation.”

Vapor IO develops both software and hardware. Vapor IO’s modular data center packs 150kW of compute into an enclosure, mounting its round Vapor Chamber rack enclosure on a motorized turntable. Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge uses software and high-speed connectivity to bring multiple micro data center facilities into a single virtual facility with multiple availability zones. Modules are meshed together with high-speed fiber across a group of data centers. The design builds upon the “availability zone” approach popularized by Amazon Web Services, creating a cluster of local data centers to easily hand off data and traffic.

Shared Knowledge as a Force Multiplier

“With the edge Internet, we want to leverage cross-platform knowledge,” said Sundaram of Alef. “How it all fits together is an interesting question. No one company can do it. There’s a shared sense of know-how that’s very important.”

That notion resonates with Crawford, a veteran of community building from his tenure at the Open Compute Project, which worked to commercialize open source hardware designs for servers and data centers.

“My work in non-profits tells me that there’s a rising tide that floats all boats,” said Crawford. “Open source works.”

Vapor IO is just one of a group of startups targeting the market for edge computing, which moves content closer to users, improving the experience for streaming video and gaming. It’s a hot trend, as the emergence of the Internet of Things, AI and autonomous cars reinforces the need for data centers in new places. Other players in this space include EdgeMicro, DartPoints, DataBank, Baselayer and Switch.

Explore the evolving world of edge computing further through Data Center Frontier’s special report series and ongoing coverage.

LinkedinTwitterFacebookSubscribe
Mail

Tagged With: Edge Computing, Edge Data Centers, Vapor IO

Newsletters

Stay informed: Get our weekly updates!

Are you a new reader? Follow Data Center Frontier on Twitter or Facebook.

About Rich Miller

I write about the places where the Internet lives, telling the story of data centers and the people who build them. I founded Data Center Knowledge, the data center industry's leading news site. Now I'm exploring the future of cloud computing at Data Center Frontier.

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Voices of the Industry

Understanding the Differences Between 5 Common Types of Data Centers

Understanding the Differences Between 5 Common Types of Data Centers No two are data centers are alike when it comes to design or the applications and data they support with their networking, compute and storage infrastructure. Shad Secrist of Belden outlines the differences between 5 of the most common types of data centers including edge, colocation and hyperscale.

White Papers

Bypass Architectures

Distributed and Centralized Bypass Architectures Compared

When designing a power protection scheme for data centers, IT and facility managers must ask themselves whether a distributed or centralized backup strategy makes more sense. Unfortunately, there is no easy answer to that question. Download the new white paper from Vertiv that explores the principle of centralized versus distributed bypass and applies it equally to standalone monolithic and integrated-modular UPS architectures.

Get this PDF emailed to you.

We always respect your privacy and we never sell or rent our list to third parties. By downloading this White Paper you are agreeing to our terms of service. You can opt out at any time.

DCF Spotlight

Data center modules on display at the recent Edge Congress conference in Austin, Texas. (Photo: Rich Miller)

Edge Computing is Poised to Remake the Data Center Landscape

Data center leaders are investing in edge computing and edge solutions and actively looking at new ways to deploy edge capacity to support evolving business and user requirements.

An aerial view of major facilities in Data Center Alley in Ashburn, Virginia. (Image: Loudoun County)

Northern Virginia Data Center Market: The Focal Point for Cloud Growth

The Northern Virginia data center market is seeing a surge in supply and an even bigger surge in demand. Data Center Frontier explores trends, stats and future expectations for the No. 1 data center market in the country.

See More Spotlight Features

Newsletters

Get the Latest News from Data Center Frontier

Job Listings

RSS Job Openings | Pkaza Critical Facilities Recruiting

  • Critical Power Energy Manager - Data Center Development - Ashburn, VA
  • Site Development Manager - Data Center - Ashburn, VA
  • Data Center Facility Operations Director - Chicago, IL
  • Electrical Engineer - Senior - Dallas, TX
  • Mechanical Commissioning Engineer - Calgary, Alberta

See More Jobs

Data Center 101

Data Center 101: Mastering the Basics of the Data Center Industry

Data Center 101: Mastering the Basics of the Data Center Industry

Data Center Frontier, in partnership with Open Spectrum, brings our readers a series that provides an introductory guidebook to the ins and outs of the data center and colocation industry. Think power systems, cooling, solutions, data center contracts and more. The Data Center 101 Special Report series is directed to those new to the industry, or those of our readers who need to brush up on the basics.

  • Data Center Power
  • Data Center Cooling
  • Strategies for Data Center Location
  • Data Center Pricing Negotiating
  • Cloud Computing

See More Data center 101 Topics

About Us

Charting the future of data centers and cloud computing. We write about what’s next for the Internet, and the innovations that will take us there. We tell the story of the digital economy through the data center facilities that power cloud computing and the people who build them. Read more ...
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

About Our Founder

Data Center Frontier is edited by Rich Miller, the data center industry’s most experienced journalist. For more than 20 years, Rich has profiled the key role played by data centers in the Internet revolution. Meet the DCF team.

TOPICS

  • 5G Wireless
  • Cloud
  • Colo
  • Connected Cars
  • Cooling
  • Cornerstone
  • Coronavirus
  • Design
  • Edge Computing
  • Energy
  • Executive Roundtable
  • Featured
  • Finance
  • Hyperscale
  • Interconnection
  • Internet of Things
  • Machine Learning
  • Network
  • Podcast
  • Servers
  • Site Selection
  • Social Business
  • Special Reports
  • Storage
  • Sustainability
  • Videos
  • Virtual Reality
  • Voices of the Industry
  • Webinar
  • White Paper

Copyright Data Center Frontier LLC © 2022