Gravio HubKit is a distributed Edge Computing system. It can be installed on any computer running macOS, Windows or Linux. Or it can be running on our own hardware, the so-called Gravio Hub.
Because Gravio is a distributed system consisting of multiple nodes, it needs software to coordinate those nodes. We call this software “Gravio Coordinator”. For the free, basic and standard options of Gravio, Asteria provide the backend via Gravio Cloud. But for the Enterprise edition, you have the option to use your own Coordinator in your own infrastructure. Even if you have an Enterprise edition of Gravio, we strongly recommend you to start using Gravio with the Gravio Cloud accounts to familiarise yourself with Gravio. Only once you have used Gravio successfully you can then move to the next complexity level, which is running Gravio off your own Coordinator.
One, and only one coordinator is required to manage a set of Gravio HubKits within the same network. You can install it on a local Linux machine, or you can install it on one of your cloud servers, for example on an Amazon cloud. Consider the Coordinator as your back end for your infrastructure where you manage your HubKits and users who have access to it.
The Gravio Coordinator also comes built-in on the Gravio hardware, called the Gravio Hub, but generally, we recommend to install it on a separate machine or your own cloud infrastructure.
The idea behind the Gravio Coordinator is, that you, as a Gravio customer, have full control over your infrastructure and do not have to rely on a cloud back end that you don’t have control over.
The Gravio Coordinator is has a web-based front-end that allows you to oversee and manage your Gravio HubKits, no matter if they are Gravio Hubs or on your own hardware, from a central place. Gravio Coordinator is built to:
- Manage access: creating and deleting users, managing access and privileges
- Oversee the status of each Gravio Hub node: system health, statistics, problem-solving
- Deploy and manage the remote software: update hubs, certificates, security credentials, authenticate users
- Investigate data collected: The Gravio Coordinator also keeps a record of the distributed ledger data for audit purpose (depending on the license level you chose)
Gravio Coordinator can be installed on any cloud server (private or public cloud) or local machine using Docker. All you need is an enterprise license.
Notes:
- We keep the database of the users outside Docker for the data to be persistent.
- The HubKit instance in the docker container is optional and used to synchronize Distributed Ledger (Blockchain) audit data in case one of the hubs is not connected
- The Gravio Coordinator has a web interface that can be accessed with any standard browser