Edge Computing at Chick-fil-A • Hacker News Board

Re: Edge Computing at Chick-fil-A

#291

Post by uncreativebrian » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 2:10 AM UTC

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."

Most retailers don't have the challenges of scale that we have and I think thats why its weird to see tech innovation in a restaurant. That said, we need it to scale and are grateful to the k8s community for making what we are working to do possible!

Re: Edge Computing at Chick-fil-A

#292

Post by paulie_a » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 2:12 AM UTC

max_im wrote: post #85

I work in midtown NYC near a Chick-fil-a location. Used to be a line down the block, went with a friend yesterday thinking we caught the line at a short time but turns out they were using smiley employees with ipads coordinating orders and that they were serving arguably more people than before. Very impressed with how seamlessly they've integrated tech in their brick and mortars in contrast with the countless "cashl…

That is strange to have a cashless restaurant. If anything cash is preferred. I know of a few places that only accept cash. And in the last week my debit card chip has been malfunctioning so I have to pay cash for everything until my new one arrives. I even attempted to use nfc today. That is a shit technology and was a waste of time. The POS terminals simply don't work.

Re: Edge Computing at Chick-fil-A

#293

Post by uncreativebrian » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 2:14 AM UTC

djhworld wrote: post #64

I enjoyed reading this post, but came away with more questions. They talk about providing a service for developers to deploy stuff easily, but I'm wondering how that works in practise. I've very little experience with Kubernetes, the author mentions they run 'mini' kubernetes clusters at each restaurant. Does that mean they have to deploy software/container updates to each restaurant one by one? Or is it abstracted a…

We should have a Medium post about this soon, but we built a set of tools called Fleet, Atlas, and Vessel. The simple premise is that Fleet generates code for 1..n clusters. By code I just mean yaml files. Atlas is a git repo per cluster that holds the declarative state for that cluster. At any time it should be able to be applied to the cluster and result in the ideal state. And then vessel runs in each cluster and does a (I am oversimplifying a bit) git pull and kubectl apply -f. We can use these tools to do canary deployments (generate x percent this way, y percent that way in ingress rules) across a wide range of clusters. The goal here is really to minimize configuration drift and keep a large number of fairly ubiquitous (but not always so) clusters in order.

Re: Edge Computing at Chick-fil-A

#294

Post by uncreativebrian » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 2:17 AM UTC

jaytaylor wrote: post #65

Since we have a highly available Kubernetes cluster with data replicated across all nodes .. This sounds like one of the more cutting-edge bare-metal kubernetes setups I've heard of! Curious what the kubernetes implementation / configuration looks like for the setup they've described. Particularly in terms of HA-cluster k8s configuration, networking solutions integrated, and replicated storage. Considering there is n…

Hi Jay -- this is Brian (I wrote the article). There are constant tradeoffs. I am leery to say we are the most sophisticated bare metal setup. I think all of us that are close to the work would love for many parts to be much more sophisticated. That said, the way we handle distributed data right now is using Mongodb. We have a cluster that spans the three nodes that we have in a restaurant. The primary use case is persistence for our MQTT topics. Most of this data is what I will call "mildly ephemeral". It isn't needed for the long term, but we do `hope` to maintain it long enough to exfiltrate it to the cloud and deliver it to any necessary recipients. If we were to have a global cluster outage, it is not the end of the world. Over time, it probably will be. Back to work! :)

Re: Edge Computing at Chick-fil-A

#295

Post by uncreativebrian » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 2:20 AM UTC

d0100 wrote: post #187

reaperducer wrote: post #125

We think of our Edge Computing environment as a “micro private cloud” We call local clouds "fogs."

Aren't most edge computing reffered to as fog-computing? Or is it just in academia

Hey this is Brian -- I wrote the article. I have heard the term a lot over the years. I think you could call it that -- the idea being its the "foggy" area between the user and the cloud. The reason we like "micro private cloud" is that 1) its a tiny environment with limited cloud properties (no elastic scale) but 2) we do try and provide a platform with cloud-like services for our internal developers, and we like the cloud paradigms being applied to how we think about compute at the edge, in restaurants.

Re: Edge Computing at Chick-fil-A

#296

Post by uncreativebrian » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 2:22 AM UTC

psychometry wrote: post #18

When it comes to Chick-fil-A, there's also the regressive side in addition to the modern and traditional sides. https://hornet.com/stories/chick-fil-a-anti-lgbtq-donations-...

Hey, this is Brian and I wrote the article. I have worked at Chick-fil-A for over 17 years. I will volunteer time to take a phone call with anyone that is interested in hearing my first-hand experience with Chick-fil-A and its culture over the years. Just reach out on LinkedIn if you are interested and we will schedule some time.

Re: Edge Computing at Chick-fil-A

#297

Post by burgreblast » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 2:22 AM UTC

raiflip wrote: post #286

beckler wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend who used to be a shift manager at Chick-fil-A. I can't remember exactly what he called that process... It was like meet and greet or walk and talk, but it's surprisingly efficient for the drive thru. He said it cuts down the average wait time for customers around 15% at his location. I don't know what it would be like at NYC since it's not a drive thru.

It's crazy efficient. When you walk in someone with a tablet takes your order, and by the time you get to the cash register your food is ready. Works so well because the employees are able to catch customers at the end of the line.

Here's "Line busting" the drive thru 68+ cars deep. It's astonishing the WiFi goes out that far.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIQWyYQ0EYg

FWIW, also an edge approach, with Prometheus etc.

Re: Edge Computing at Chick-fil-A

#298

Post by ocdtrekkie » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 2:23 AM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #252

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I currently use a laptop power adapter for the cigarette lighter, which is only on when the car is. The NUC's BIOS is set to turn it on when the power comes on, but I power it off manually before turning off the car. This is not ideal. There is an external battery solution for the NUC, and I bought it! http://www.mini-box.com/NUC-UPS But I haven't switched to it yet. The big upside is that it will gracefully shutdown…

It should be pretty easy to hook up a microcontroller (think Arduino nano) to "press" the power button when the power from the lighter comes on.

Since I'm not a hardware guy, I try to avoid assembling my own gadgetry as much as possible on this project. I use consumer grade home automation modules, standard computer parts where possible. (Everything in my car is largely interconnected with USB.) And generally, experimenting with the NUC UPS aside, I try to avoid parts that may be hard to replace. Which is to say, I don't have time to build, test, and fix a random Arduino gadget. ;)

I've been planning to make some custom-cut USB cables and a 3D printed part just to make the setup of my display a lot cleaner... and I haven't done either of those and it's been a year or so since I planned to.

Re: Edge Computing at Chick-fil-A

#299

Post by uncreativebrian » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 2:24 AM UTC

dpeck wrote: post #4

with articles like this and Mac'd from this YC cohort it seems like an increasingly interesting time in the restaurant/technology space.

Hey this is Brian -- I wrote the article. It really is an interesting time, especially when you have the scale that Chick-fil-A has. While traditionally a fairly archaic industry (POS registers, ERP at corp, thats about it), the volumes and challenges of scale have created many challenges that solid engineering can help solve.

Re: Edge Computing at Chick-fil-A

#300

Post by uncreativebrian » Thu, Aug 23, 2018, 2:26 AM UTC

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #16

bradleyankrom wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the domain is interesting, but I worry about the long-term effects of maximizing efficiencies (read: automation) forpeople who rely on jobs in that industry.

A myth about manufacturing jobs is that they all went overseas. Reality is that most of them were replaced by robots and automation. Low skill, low knowledge, repetitive work is key target for automation. Fast food workers wouldn't have large downstream effects. Automated truck driving would though. There are likely entire towns right off of highways that depend on humans passing through daily - restaurants, repair s…

Hey this is Brian -- I wrote the article. I do want to add that Chick-fil-A isnt looking to replace jobs with "robots". We really want to assign our restaurant team members to tasks that add maximum value to customers, which are generally service oriented (iPad in Drive Thru, personal service in the dining room, etc). Our automation will help our team members be more effecient and enjoy their jobs more rather than replace them.