Project nEdge-nCloud

Required Information 

Responses (Please list N/A if not applicable) 

Name of Project 

nEdge-nCloud 

Project Description (what it does, why it is valuable, origin and history) 

What does nEdge-nCloud do? 

nEdge-nCloud is a reliable and efficient multi-cloud distributed storage which enables applications and devices at the edge to store data into one or more clouds. nEdge serves as a storage proxy at the edge to pre-process data for reliability and provide unified storage (over multiple cloud storage destinations) to edge applications. nEdge persists and access data in one or more clouds via nCloud, which is deployed in the clouds. 

Why is nEdge-nCloud valuable? 

Leveraging Cloud Storage with Ease at the Edge 

In edge deployment, IoT devices and applications generate a vast amount of data. nEdge-nCloud enables them to store data in a reliable and efficient storage pool of data across private and public clouds, e.g., for archival and backup. nEdge-nCloud supports utilizing multiple public cloud storage as storage destinations, e.g., AWS and Alibaba Cloud. It transparently manages data storage on behalf of the applications, freeing the applications from complex storage setup and management. nEdge-nCloud currently provides a standard network file interface, SMB, for file storage, and a socket-based client interface for custom application integration. 

Efficient and Configurable Data Reliability 

nEdge-nCloud adopts erasure coding to reduce the storage overhead and hence the cost compared to replication. nEdge-nCloud also provides configurable reliability which can be customized according to application storage requirements. It automatically repairs data to ensure data reliability. 

Origin and History of nEdge-nCloud 

nEdge-nCloud is a distributed storage solution co-developed by CU Coding Ltd. and CUHK ADSLab. Ideas of applying nEdge-nCloud to edge deployments, .e.g, smart factories, have won awards in several competitions, including the EdgeX China challenge 2022 and 5th "Bloom Cup” 5G Application Competition. 

Statement on alignment with Foundation Mission Statement 

nEdge-nCloud aligns with the LF Edge Mission Statement: 

• nEdge-nCloud is neutral to edge and cloud platform vendors, providing a unified cloud storage through standard storage interfaces to edge applications over a diversity of cloud storage. 
• nEdge-nCloud enables edge applications to reliably store data into the cloud in a cost-efficient manner. 
• nEdge-nCloud accelerates edge application development and innovation by offloading cloud-tier data management from applications logic. 

High level assessment of project synergy with existing projects under LF Edge, including how the project compliments/overlaps with existing projects, and potential ways to harmonize over time. Responses may be included both here and/or in accompanying documentation.  

nEdge-nCloud can provide storage to projects that gather and manage the data from heterogeneous IoT devices, such as eKuiper, Home Edge, EdgeX. One example would be storing video recordings and images of surveillance cameras from the edge to nEdge-nCloud. 

Link to current Code of Conduct 

2 TAC Sponsors, if identified (Sponsors help mentor projects) - See full definition on Project Stages: Definitions and Expectations 

N/A

Project license 

GLP v3 

Source control (GitHub by default) 

Issue tracker (GitHub by default) 

External dependencies (including licenses) 

Release methodology and mechanics 

Names of initial committers, if different from those submitting proposal 

Helen H. W. Chan 

Current number of code contributors to proposed project 

8 

Current number of organizations contributing to proposed project 

CUHK Applied Distributed System Lab (ADSLab) 

Briefly describe the project's leadership team and decision-making process 

Aldous Ng / CEO, CU Coding Ltd. 

Shakeel Salamat Ullah / CTO, CU Coding Ltd. 

Patrick P. C. Lee / Prof. at The Chinese University of Hong Kong 

Helen H. W. Chan / Postdoc. at The Chinese University of Hong Kong 

List of project's official communication channels (slack, irc, mailing lists) 

N/A

Link to project's website 

N/A

Links to social media accounts 

N/A

Existing financial sponsorship 

N/A

Infrastructure needs or requests (to include GitHub/Gerrit, CI/CD, Jenkins, Nexus, JIRA, other ...) 

GitHub 

Currently Supported Architecture 

x86-64 

Planned Architecture Support 

N/A 

Project logo in svg format (see https://github.com/lf-edge/lfedge-landscape#logos for guidelines) 

N/A

Trademark status 

N/A 

Does the project have a Core Infrastructure Initiative security best practices badge? (See: https://bestpractices.coreinfrastructure.org) 

No 

Any additional information the TAC and Board should take into consideration when reviewing your proposal? 

N/A

2 TAC Sponsors, if identified (Sponsors help mentor projects) - See full definition on Project Stages: Definitions and Expectations 

N/A

A presentation at an upcoming meeting of the TAC, in accordance with the project proposal requirements 

N/A

The typical IP Policy for Projects under the LF Edge Foundation is Apache 2.0 for Code Contributions, Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO) for new inbound contributions, and Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License for Documentation. Projects under outside licenses may still submit for consideration, subject to review/approval of the TAC and Board. 

Code contribution: nEdge-nCloud licenses its code under GPLv3 as it utilizes a GPLv3-licensed library which prevents the derived work from being compatible with Apache 2.0. 

Documentation: Yes 

Upon acceptance, At Large projects must list their status prominently on website/readme 

Yes 

APIs 

Provide 

Cloud Connectivity 

Provide 

Container Runtime & Orchestration 

Consume 

Data Governance 

Provide, Consume 

Data Models 

Provide 

Device Connectivity 

Consume 

Filters/Pre-processing 

N/A 

Logging 

Consume 

Management UI 

Consume 

Messaging & Events 

N/A 

Notifications & Alerts 

N/A 

Security 

N/A 

Storage 

Provide, Consume, Facilitate - Reliability 

Customer Devices (Edge Nodes) 

N/A 

Customer Premises (DC and Edge Gateways) 

Support 

Telco Network Edge (MEC and Far-MEC) 

Support 

Telco CO & Regional 

Possible 

Cloud Edge & CDNs 

Cloud Edge – Support; CDNs: Possible 

Public Cloud 

Support 

Private Cloud 

Support 

Automotive / Connected Car 

X 

Chemicals 

X 

Facilities / Building automation 

X 

Consumer 

✔ 

Manufacturing 

X 

Metal & Mining 

X 

Oil & Gas 

X 

Pharma 

X 

Health Care 

X 

Power & Utilities 

X 

Pulp & Paper 

X 

Telco Operators 

✔ 

Telco/Communications Service Provider (Network Equipment Provider) 

X 

Transportation (asset tracking) 

X 
 

Supply Chain 

X 

Preventative Maintenance 

X 

Water Utilities 

X 

Security / Surveillance 

✔ 

Retail / Commerce (physical point of sale with customers) 

X 

Other - Please add if not listed above (please notify TAC-subgroup@lists.lfedge.org when you add one) 

No

Gateways (to Cloud, to other placements) 

✔ 

NFV Infrastructure 

X 

Stationary during their entire usable life / Fixed placement edge constellations / Assume you always have connectivity and you don't need to store & forward. 

 
✔ 

Stationary during active periods, but nomadic between activations (e.g., fixed access) / Not always assumed to have connectivity. Don't expect to store & forward. 

 
✔ 

Mobile within a constrained and well-defined space (e.g., in a factory) / Expect to have intermittent connectivity and store & forward. 

X 
 

Fully mobile (To include: Wearables and Connected Vehicles) / Bursts of connectivity and always store & forward. 

X 
 

APIs 

Provide 

Applications 

Provide 

Firmware 

Required 

Hardware 

Required 

Orchestration 

Required 

OS 

Required 

VM/Containers 

Required 

Applications 

Provide 

Configuration (drive) 

N/A 

Content (management system) 

N/A 

IaaS 

N/A 

PaaS 

Required 

Physical Infrastructure 

N/A 

SaaS 

N/A