Dean Oren & Stefan Belsch
From Factory Floor to Kubernetes Core: Building an Edge Platform One Step at a Time
#1about 4 minutes
Introducing the platform for Schwarz Group's industrial operations
An overview of the challenge of bridging industrial operations and modern software at the Schwarz Group's diverse divisions like Kaufland and PreZero.
#2about 2 minutes
The platform's origin and core design principles
The platform began in 2020 to solve machine connectivity challenges, guided by principles like using Git everywhere and a hub-and-spoke model.
#3about 2 minutes
Evolving the platform from POC to critical infrastructure
The platform evolved from a proof-of-concept to a critical, automated system with 24/7 support by using Terraform and Azure DevOps pipelines.
#4about 1 minute
A pragmatic approach to tool selection and evolution
Tooling decisions are documented with ADRs, prioritizing open-source solutions first while adopting enterprise tools for security and scalability needs.
#5about 2 minutes
A high-level overview of the platform architecture
The architecture uses a hub-and-spoke model with on-prem Kubernetes control planes managing edge devices running K3s and cloud-based SKE clusters.
#6about 3 minutes
Use case: AI-driven foreign object detection in manufacturing
A practical example shows how the platform supports an AI application for quality assurance on a factory conveyor belt using an integrated observability stack.
#7about 2 minutes
Onboarding a new edge device using a GitOps workflow
A new edge device is automatically bootstrapped with K3s and connected to the control plane using an Argo CD job triggered by changes in Azure.
#8about 1 minute
Future plans for automation and self-service capabilities
The team plans to build a 'control plane of control planes' and a self-service interface for customers to bootstrap their own edge devices.
Related jobs
Jobs that call for the skills explored in this talk.
Wilken GmbH
Ulm, Germany
Senior
Kubernetes
AI Frameworks
+3
ROSEN Technology and Research Center GmbH
Osnabrück, Germany
Senior
TypeScript
React
+3
VECTOR Informatik
Stuttgart, Germany
Senior
Kubernetes
Terraform
+1
Matching moments
01:32 MIN
Organizing a developer conference for 15,000 attendees
Cat Herding with Lions and Tigers - Christian Heilmann
02:49 MIN
Using AI to overcome challenges in systems programming
AI in the Open and in Browsers - Tarek Ziadé
03:34 MIN
The business case for sustainable high performance
Sustainable High Performance: Build It or Pay the Price
03:39 MIN
Breaking down silos between HR, tech, and business
What 2025 Taught Us: A Year-End Special with Hung Lee
02:20 MIN
The evolving role of the machine learning engineer
AI in the Open and in Browsers - Tarek Ziadé
04:28 MIN
Building an open source community around AI models
AI in the Open and in Browsers - Tarek Ziadé
03:38 MIN
Balancing the trade-off between efficiency and resilience
What 2025 Taught Us: A Year-End Special with Hung Lee
04:27 MIN
Moving beyond headcount to solve business problems
What 2025 Taught Us: A Year-End Special with Hung Lee
Featured Partners
Related Videos
29:26Empowering Thousands of Developers: Our Journey to an Internal Developer Platform
Bastian Heilemann & Bruno Margula
30:58From Code to Motion: Building an Autonomous Hat-Hunting Robot with Kubernetes & ML
Daniel Brintzinger
19:01Simplifying edge app delivery: one workflow, thousands of devices
Christian Koep
26:47Let developers develop again
Kai Geißelhardt & Volker Zöpfel
27:33AI-Augmented DevOps with Platform Engineering
Romano Roth
29:50Trends, Challenges and Best Practices for AI at the Edge
Ekaterina Sirazitdinova
28:16Navigating the Corporate Jungle: Life as a Developer in a large Company
Alexandra Petri
22:45The Future of Cloud is Abstraction - Why Kubernetes is not the Endgame for STACKIT
Dominik Kress
Related Articles
View all articles
From learning to earning
Jobs that call for the skills explored in this talk.
Schwarz Unternehmenskommunikation GmbH & Co. KG
Heilbronn, Germany
Go
DevOps
Kubernetes
Schwarz Digits
Barcelona, Spain
Intermediate
API
Linux
DevOps
Kubernetes
Schwarz Unternehmenskommunikation GmbH & Co. KG
Heilbronn, Germany
GIT
DevOps
Terraform
Kubernetes
Continuous Integration
Schwarz Group
Barcelona, Spain
GIT
Terraform
Kubernetes
Continuous Integration
Schwarz Unternehmenskommunikation GmbH & Co. KG
Heilbronn, Germany
Go
DevOps
Kubernetes
Schwarz Digits
Barcelona, Spain
API
Java
Kotlin
Software Architecture
Stolzberger GmbH
€60-100K
Linux
DevOps
Gitlab
Ansible
+4