Manage an Edge Application Instance

Prerequisites

Options for Managing Edge Apps through ZEDEDA GUI

This article covers topics such as how to view, activate, reactivate, deactivate, purge & update, create snapshots, and delete a single edge application instance or multiple edge application instances. 

Note:

• The ellipsis (...) icon contains more actions in the dropdown menu with the same operations on the following tabs: Status, Basic Info, Adapters, Events, and Logs.
• Apart from the Remote Console operation, the majority of management steps in this article are shown from the list view, but you have multiple options.

Dashboard

After you log in to ZEDEDA GUI, the landing page shows a widget called Quick Links on the bottom right, where you can click the Update Edge App Instances action.

Edge Application Instances List View

After you log in to ZEDEDA GUI, click the Edge App Instances on the left panel, which will take you to the list view screen. The top panel shows (collapsed by default) dashboard summary widgets, and the bottom panel shows a table of the list of the edge application instances.

Edge Application Instances Detail View

After you log in to ZEDEDA GUI, click the Edge App Instances on the left panel, which will take you to the list view screen. Click on one of the edge app instances in the list to take you to the detail view of that edge application instance.

Add an Edge App Instance

You can manually add an edge app instance or use the deploy option from the Marketplace. See Access the Edge App Instance Wizard. The steps are basically the same, only the way you access the wizard is different. 

View an Edge App Instance

After you add or deploy edge app instances, you can view them. 

1. Select Edge App Instances from the left panel.
2. Observe both the list of your instances and the Summary drop down panel.
3. Click one of your edge app instances to see its details. 

Activate an Edge App Instance

You can activate an edge app instance when it is deployed but not automatically activated.

1. Select Edge App Instances from the left panel. 
2. Select one or more edge app instances from the list.
3. Click the ellipsis (...) for more actions.
4. From the dropdown, select Activate.
5. A notification appears.

After the activate request is processed, the Admin Status of the selected edge application instances will change to Active.

Reactivate an Edge App Instance

You can reactivate an edge app instance to reboot it.

1. Select Edge App Instances from the left panel. 
2. Select one or more edge app instances from the list.
3. Click the ellipsis (...) for more actions.
4. From the dropdown, select Reactivate.
5. Click Reactivate to confirm.
6. A notification appears.

Deactivate an Edge App Instance

You can stop the edge app instance from running in the edge node and it can’t be accessed until you activate it again. 

1. Select Edge App Instances from the left panel. 
2. Select one or more edge app instances from the list.
3. Click the ellipsis (...) for more actions.
4. From the dropdown, select Deactivate.
5. A notification appears.

Purge & Update an Edge App Instance

You can return to the initial state whenever you want to start fresh in the same instance. 

1. Select Edge App Instances from the left panel. 
2. Select one or more edge app instances from the list.
3. Click the ellipsis (...) for more actions.
4. From the dropdown, select Purge & Update.
5. A notification appears.

Edge app changes in the Marketplace and back-end conditions can cause the UI to display the Purge & Update button, such as: 

• Editing the custom configuration - Purge and update notification available. App purges and comes back online after clicking Purge & Update. 
• Editing Network ACL - Update/refresh notification available. App restarts after clicking Update.
• Editing Drives - Purge and update notification available. App purges and comes back online after clicking Purge & Update.
• Editing CPU and Memory - Update/refresh notification available. App restarts after clicking Update.
• Editing VNC configuration - Update/refresh notification available. App restarts after clicking Update. 

Create Snapshot of an Edge App Instance

If your edge device has the capability, you can take backups of your edge app instance even if it is air-gapped or offline for long periods of time. See Application Snapshot instead if you’re trying to take a snapshot of VM data volumes during the process of purging and upgrading the VMs. This is available only with EVE-OS version 14.5.0-LTS or greater. 

1. Select Edge App Instances from the left panel. 
2. Select one or more edge app instances from the list.
3. Click the ellipsis (...) for more actions.
4. From the dropdown, select Create Snapshot.
5. Click Create to confirm.
6. A notification appears. The snapshot is stored in your instance’s Storage tab. 

Rollback to a Snapshot of an Edge App Instance

You can rollback an application instance from its Storage tab. 

1. Click Edge App Instances in the left panel.
2. Select your edge app instance from those available.
3. Click on your instance’s Storage tab.
4. Scroll down to the App Instance Volume Snapshots section.
5. Identify the snapshot you will rollback to.
6. Click the back arrow icon. A confirmation box will appear.
7. Click Rollback.

Observe the status of the rollback operation in the snapshot’s Status column. After a successful rollback, it will read Activated and the rollback button will become inactive.

Create a Patch Envelope for an Edge App Instance

See Patch Envelope for how to create, attach, or detach a patch envelope.

Delete an Edge App Instance

You can delete the edge app instance when you no longer need it.

1. Select Edge App Instances from the left panel. 
2. Select one or more edge app instances from the list.
3. Click the ellipsis (...) for more actions.
4. From the dropdown, select Create Snapshot.
5. Click Create to confirm.
6. A notification appears. 

A job will be created to track the activity for the Delete operation performed on multiple edge application instances. The jobs indicator appears on the left navigation, indicating that the requested job has been started.​

Remote Console into an Edge App Instance

You can manage your edge application instance in command line mode. The remote console is web-based access to the application instance and is accessible only when VNC access is enabled. This is also accessible only when the edge node, along with the edge application instance, is online.

1. Select Edge App Instances from the left panel. 
2. Click one of your edge app instances to see its details.
3. Click the ellipsis (...) for more actions.
4. From the dropdown, select Remote Console.
5. You will be navigated to another browser tab, where you will see a message indicating an attempt to connect to the remote console.
6. You will land on the Remote Console window of that particular edge application instance. 

Warning Messages for Remote Console Operation:

Edit an Edge App Instance

After your edge application instance runs on the respective edge node, you can edit a few fields in the Basic Info tab. 

1. Select Edge App Instances from the left panel. 
2. Select one app instance from the list to see its details.
3. Click the Basic Info tab.
4. Click on the pencil icon.
5. You can edit the following fields:
   • Title - User-defined and can be changed.
   • Description - The detailed explanation of what the edge app instance is all about, its purpose, etc.
   • Enable Logs Access - Collect and access logs generated by the edge app Instance. 
   • Staggered Start Delay - Configure a delay of Seconds, Minutes, or Hours to make sure that your instances start at different intervals rather than all at once. 
   • VMM Overhead - This allows you to fine-tune memory allocation based on the specific edge device's resources and the requirements of that deployment (versus when creating an edge app, which is more of a default global setting for the app). 
   • Tags - Name/value pairs that enable you to categorize resources or target specific groups of edge nodes, such as "location:us-west".
6. Click Save.

Next Steps

This is a series of articles. You will likely follow them in this order.

1. Edge Application Overview
2. Manage an Edge App Image
3. Manage an Edge Application
4. Deploy an Application Instance
5. Manage an Edge Application Instance - You are here!
6. Use the ZEDEDA CLI to Manage an Edge Application Instance