Red Hat debuts Edge Manager for secure device fleet control

Red Hat has announced the technology preview of Red Hat Edge Manager, a new solution for overseeing large fleets of edge devices from a single management console.

The technology is designed to address the rising complexity and scale of edge computing environments, which often require efficient oversight of thousands of geographically dispersed devices. Red Hat Edge Manager aims to provide a centralised platform to streamline infrastructure and application management with particular attention given to security and operational resilience.

Edge computing environments typically involve a wide range of devices, including retail point-of-sale systems and industrial machinery located in remote or distributed settings. As organisations look to expand their use of edge devices, challenges related to connectivity, diverse hardware, operational complexity and cost arise. Red Hat has developed the new Edge Manager to address these with features for elasticity and enhanced control across edge deployments.

The solution offers a series of functions, including fleet management through policy-based deployment of applications and infrastructure. This supports both single-node and multi-node configurations, aiming to achieve scale and operational efficiency. Users can deploy desired state configurations and manage applications across large numbers of devices with automated rollouts and real-time visibility into progress and device health.

Red Hat Edge Manager also focuses on addressing the skills gap in IT staff at some edge locations by providing a more user-friendly and simplified management environment. It has been designed to allow organisations to manage their infrastructure without the need for specialised expertise typically associated with edge operations.

The product introduces proactive device insights, enabling the configuration and monitoring of device resources. Customisable alerts allow users to track resource utilisation, and metrics and logs can be captured to address issues effectively and maintain operational awareness.

Security is a central aspect of Red Hat Edge Manager. The solution uses mutual Transport Layer Security (mTLS) to enable encrypted and authenticated communication between agent services on devices and the central management console. This approach is intended to ensure a consistent security posture, preventing impersonation or unauthorised duplication of device identities through strict identity verification processes.

Customers are presented with flexible management options, including the possibility to perform on-premises management, which Red Hat says can provide comparable or greater value than cloud-based alternatives, depending on an organisation's requirements or deployment strategy.

A resilient agent-based architecture helps to ensure scalable device management. The system is built to maintain connectivity and control even under challenging network conditions, so complex network configurations should not be necessary to maintain oversight of managed devices.

Lifecycle management is included to enable secure onboarding and decommissioning of devices, as well as controlling operating system and application upgrades in a way that is designed to minimise disruption and security risk.

In terms of workload management, Red Hat Edge Manager is optimised for container-centric deployments, supporting container engines such as Podman and Docker, alongside Kubernetes orchestration. Red Hat also said support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux image mode is planned in future releases, further broadening deployment options across edge device fleets.

The technology preview of Red Hat Edge Manager allows users to evaluate its new features and capabilities as part of the Red Hat Device Edge portfolio as the company works towards broader availability.

Francis Chow, Vice President and General Manager, In-Vehicle Operating System and Edge at Red Hat, said: "Red Hat Edge Manager represents a bold step forward in empowering organizations to confidently manage their increasingly distributed edge. This technology preview offers a comprehensive and more secure foundation for achieving unprecedented scale and unlocking significant new value from edge deployments."