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Edge Computing at Chick-fil-A

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Re: Edge Computing at Chick-fil-A

#161

Post by monocasa »

api wrote: post #97
walrus01 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The write lifespan in DWPD on any sd card is a tiny fraction of the expected lifespan of even a cheap $55 consumer SSD. Part of the problem is that even if you only write 1GB per day the card is highly likely to reuse the same sectors over and over.

Don't most modern SD cards contain some wear leveling logic? I did a bunch of research on this a while back and the conclusion I found was: yes, but buy name-brand better rated cards to avoid cheapo cards that do not do wear leveling or do it very badly. It's nowhere near as good as SSD drives, but it's better than just a naked flash chip... unless I'm wrong.

Yes, but it's not enough.

Even the brand name cards aren't worth shit; you need to buy "industrial" cards.

Source: tried to get a root filesystem to work on name brand SD cards for a high availability product.

Re: Edge Computing at Chick-fil-A

#162

Post by coffeesn0b »

zzzeek wrote: post #149
timdorr wrote: post #3

If you want to see the actual hardware used at the restaurant, check out the previous blog post: https://medium.com/@cfatechblog/bare-metal-k8s-clustering-at... Spoiler: It's a stack of Intel NUCs.

I'm just trying to understand, I see three of those machines, inside a pretty nice rack, with the switches, routers, a keyboard, I would assume some fairly high quality hard drive / RAID type of thing etc. then the blog post claims "We run our Edge infrastructure on commodity hardware that costs us, ballpark, $1000/restaurant. ". Just the intel nuc I can find on newegg alone costs $349 each, with no memory or harddri…

This is Caleb (SRE on this project). Here’s a similar NUC we use ... this one is like $300... just an example of what we use; https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1316113-REG/intel_box...

Re: Edge Computing at Chick-fil-A

#163

Post by TickleSteve »

coffeesn0b wrote: post #137
TickleSteve wrote: post #115

Can anyone explain what the actual problem is they're solving using 'edge computing'? I get the feeling this is a completely unnecessary use of technology.

Here's the abbreviated reason; Internet connectivity for restaurants stink. So we put our compute at the edge. Trust me... as an SRE I would much prefer we shove it in the cloud and call it a day, but alas... no such luck.

Yeah, but what compute? what are they computing?

The driving need for edge computing is low-latency. There just isn't the need for it in a restaurant.

I do hope they're not doing real-time control of kitchen equipment via something in a container, containers in Linux are nowhere near deterministic enough.

This strikes me as someone who is familiar with only web technologies but unfamiliar with control systems attempting to create a control system.... completely inappropriate tools for the job.

Re: Edge Computing at Chick-fil-A

#164

Post by mi100hael »

zzzeek wrote: post #149
timdorr wrote: post #3

If you want to see the actual hardware used at the restaurant, check out the previous blog post: https://medium.com/@cfatechblog/bare-metal-k8s-clustering-at... Spoiler: It's a stack of Intel NUCs.

I'm just trying to understand, I see three of those machines, inside a pretty nice rack, with the switches, routers, a keyboard, I would assume some fairly high quality hard drive / RAID type of thing etc. then the blog post claims "We run our Edge infrastructure on commodity hardware that costs us, ballpark, $1000/restaurant. ". Just the intel nuc I can find on newegg alone costs $349 each, with no memory or harddri…

I'd assume it's 3x$349 that they're referring to in the article, since most places these days already have some networking equipment (probably including a racked switch someplace) in order to provide guest wifi, connect POS terminals, etc. So that portion isn't directly tied to this effort.

Re: Edge Computing at Chick-fil-A

#165

Post by monocasa »

jessaustin wrote: post #67
walrus01 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The write lifespan in DWPD on any sd card is a tiny fraction of the expected lifespan of even a cheap $55 consumer SSD. Part of the problem is that even if you only write 1GB per day the card is highly likely to reuse the same sectors over and over.

...the card is highly likely to reuse the same sectors over and over. One would have expected this to be an area of focus for RasPi developers? Surely some driver could be updated to avoid this?

Not without making the card unreadable in other systems.

And even then I'd be surprised if you could game physical sector offsets by playing with the virtual offsets you have access to.

Re: Edge Computing at Chick-fil-A

#166

Post by abraham_lincoln »

stickfigure wrote: post #35
unit91 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is essentially "the owners hold certain values I disagree with regarding sexuality, therefore I'm surprised their technical team is any good." I don't see how that follows.

Political values are important to point out. Companies create these tech blogs as a recruitment vehicle. You should know if the company you're considering applying to is funding bigotry (or "wholesome family values" if that's your angle).

Like IBM or Facebook?

Re: Edge Computing at Chick-fil-A

#167

Post by coffeesn0b »

laurentl wrote: post #156
max_im wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For sure. Meant it more as a response to contents of the article that they've managed to break down their business processes into a subset of (dare I say) microservices that have allowed them to pinpoint weaknesses in efficiency and improve upon them - ie. the waffle fries example mentioned.

On the other hand when reading the article I kept thinking of the poor sod who has to cook a new batch of waffle fries because “The Edge” told him to.

Ultimately “the edge” will just do it for him :-P

Re: Edge Computing at Chick-fil-A

#168

Post by JoshGlazebrook »

legohead wrote: post #146
ballenf wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never been to a retail establishment with anything close to the credit card speed of CFA. The cashier can swipe and grab receipt in one smooth and quick motion. It's so fast you feel like it's broken or slight of hand. I wonder how they do it or why other companies can't or don't do it. CFA stores are so much busier than even an average McDonald's, maybe the efficiency gains are just worth more. No idea how they…

Costco is the fastest I've come across. Haven't tried CFA as I usually do drive-thru. Most places have convoluted the whole card process. It's slower than cash now...

Same. Costco's card readers are super fast. They also just started accepting tap to pay (Apple pay) nationwide.

Re: Edge Computing at Chick-fil-A

#169

Post by pvg »

Fellshard wrote: post #145
pvg wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, it's a crappy definition that does not reflect current usage. It doesn't even reflect the definition in the OED, if you want to check there. 'Bigotry' is not limited to difference of opinion. Nobody uses it like that, you can take a look at the quoted usage examples here, which are from current publications. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bigotry

Ahh, yes. Always useful to continuously cherry-pick or alter definitions to tailor words that have an objectively negative moral implication to apply to exactly the standards you want. Just because some publications use the word in that way does not mean the definition of the word should be shifted.

I’m sorry but this is a pointedly stupid comment. I’m doing the exact opposite of cherry-picking - I’m saying the definition is much broader than the inaccurately narrow one posted.

Re: Edge Computing at Chick-fil-A

#170

Post by 616c »

RandallBrown wrote: post #5
siruncledrew wrote: post #2

I don't know why, but for some reason the juxtaposition of traditional, brick-and-mortar brand images with tech blogs about building modern application technologies is amusing to me. It's seeing two completely different sides of the same organization. There's 0 condescending sentiment behind it, it's just like "wow, that was unexpected."

I worked for Nordstrom for several years and whenever I describe their technology department to another developer they're always pretty shocked. It was pretty shocking to me when I started there too.

Recently at work someone used JS tooling from their Github org and I was like what!? Found a lot of good stuff there.

Seeing down thread they were big DevOps adopters changes my mind of how I saw them as stodgy. Too bad I dislike pretty much all they sell!

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