Quality Attribute Concerns for Microservices at the Edge

Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Webcast Series

Bringing computation and data storage closer to the edge, such as disaster and tactical environments, has challenging quality attribute requirements. These include improving response time, saving bandwidth, and implementing security in resource-constrained nodes. In this webcast we review characteristics of edge environments with a focus on architectural qualities. The characteristics and quality attribute concerns that we present are generalized from and informed by multiple customer experiences that we have undertaken in recent years. We present an overview of edge environments, in both military and civilian contexts, and provide a discussion about edge-specific challenges and how they can differ based on the context. We discuss architectural quality attributes that are well suited to address the edge-specific challenges, and provide examples of how each apply. A microservices architecture provides an opportunity to address several of the quality attribute concerns at the edge. Through a final consolidated scenario as an exemplar, we discuss how the presented qualities can be addressed using microservices. This webcast should be useful for anyone interested in better understanding the challenges of edge environments and learning about representative scenarios of work currently being done.