Empowering Kubernetes with Platform Engineering to Automate IoT Processing Workflows Orchestration at the Edge

The proliferation of IoT devices provides access to an unprecedented amount of data coming from sensors and smart devices, characterized by high volumes and strong locality. The Edge Computing paradigm, by providing low-latency, privacy-aware, resilient, and distributed computational resources is considered a fundamental enabler for the processing of the massive data volume incoming from IoT devices. However, the heterogeneous and decentralized edge resource poses a significant barrier to seamless device integration and management. In this paper, we propose a Platform Engineering architecture that extends the Kubernetes control plane to simplify the orchestration and management of the processing workflow that produces data incoming from IoT devices. The proposed platform integrates management capabilities that address the complexity of provisioning heterogeneous network, storage, and compute resources, enabling smart management of edge services.