A few years ago, a large Cisco customer needed to send data from a remote device to the cloud. It was the early days of modern edge computing. To deploy new functionality to remote network devices at that time required building an app that could work with an existing device's OS and sometimes adding a server or PC. Different operating systems on various types and brands of devices were additional complexities and added workload. Today, thanks to container applications and the acceleration of containerization technology, app hosting is lightyears from where it started.   

Here's a look at what the Cisco IOS XE team dedicated to app hosting has created. It's an entire platform for the development, deployment, and management of apps on Cisco enterprise networking and IoT devices. 

Why App Hosting is Taking Off 

With a clearer understanding of what's possible with edge computing, businesses and governments are now looking to utilize analytics to do a variety of things. They can add additional monitoring or configuration capabilities to devices at the network edge, add artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, and generate actionable insights for better security, efficiency, and sales opportunities. 

Manufacturers can connect machines, transform sensor data, and perform real-time analytics to predict when maintenance is necessary. Mobile network operators can manage their cell tower assets remotely. Municipalities can manage their streets and roadways.   

In the past, developers had to add a virtual machine to their system and install software on top of that. They also sometimes had to add hardware to provide new edge functionality. But with containers, developers can today use open-source tools like Docker and LXC to deploy apps on top of IOS XE and host them (and soon manage them using Kubernetes) on Cisco devices. Deploying an app to a Cisco switch or access point is possible with the Cisco's app hosting infrastructure and isn't tied to the OS or software stack.  

"With this solution we were able to empower our customer to access mission-critical information quickly and reliably. The option to process police vehicle data on the edge and to send it to the existing tracking server was a plus that served critical demands by our customer."