Design Proposal for modular EIM packaging and installation

design-proposals/eim-modular-decomposition-installer.md

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+# Design Proposal: Installer and Release Packaging for Edge Infrastructure Manager Modular Workflows
+
+Author(s): Edge Infrastructure Manager Team
+
+Last Updated: 2025-11-12
+
+## Abstract
+
+The current Edge Infrastructure Manager (EIM) implementation included the current Edge Manageability Framework (EMF)
+release is a tightly coupled series of workflows and services deployed together in the Orchestrator. A significant
+downside to this implementation is that, if a customer only requires a subset of the EIM services, it is currently not
+possible to deploy only the required services due to the dependencies in EIM. To address this, a modular implementation
+of EIM, where different profiles and services can be deployed based on the use case required, will be created. To
+support this modular implementation of EIM, there needs to be new packaging and installer methods created to support
+deployment of modular EIM services. This proposal outlines how these release packages can be created for different use
+cases that have been identified for EIM. It also outlines the installation methods that will enable deployments of the
+modular EIM packages for customers that do not require the full EMF deployment.
+
+## Background
+
+The focus of EIM is on the lifecycle management of edge node systems that are connected to EMF. This includes OS
+provisioning, device activiation and power management, edge node maintenance and version updates for edge node services.
+It also interacts with other services such as identity, tenant management and observability that are shared with other
+domains in EMF. These are all tightly coupled together and require the deployment of the EMF as a full stack, regardless
+of the use case.
+
+As outlined in the [EIM Modular Decomposition proposal](./eim-modular-decomposition.md), to support deployment of
+subsets of EIM services based on the use case of a deployment, the current EIM implementation will be decomposed. This
+involves removing the coupling between different workflows to allow them to be deployed independently of each other.
+This also includes creating new installation profiles for each supported use case in EIM that will install only the
+required EIM services onto an Orchestrator as well as installing the required services and agents for the edge nodes.
+
+## Proposal
+
+### Scope
+
+- This proposal will cover only EIM services
+- The release package design will be generic and will cover all use cases outlined in the
+  [EIM Modular Decomposition proposal](./eim-modular-decomposition.md).
+- Only changes to support Track 1 and Track 2 outlined in the document above will be covered in this proposal.
+  Changes for Track 3 will be proposed at a later date.
+- All implementations and designs listed below that relate to the Edge Node installation are with the assumption
+  that the Edge Node has been manually configured by a customer without using the current onboarding workflow in EIM.
+- Proposal also assumes that customer has configured the required foundational services (identity, storage, Kubernetes,
+  etc.) either using the EMF stack or their own infrastructure environment.
+- The Edge Node design considerations outlined in this proposal are scoped to Ubuntu OS environments only.
+- The packaging and installation methods described herein are intended for on-premises deployment environments.
+
+### Architectural Design
+
+#### Platform Components Packaging
+
+The current EMF deployment utilizes installation scripts and Debian packages for on-premises environment provisioning.
+With the introduction of modular EIM capabilities, the packaging strategy for platform components requires modification
+to align with the new architecture. As part of the modular decomposition, certain Debian packages that were previously
+required for full EMF deployments will no longer be necessary for all use cases. Specifically, packages such as the RKE2
+installer, configuration installer, orchestrator installer will be excluded from modular EIM installations, as these
+components are part of the foundational infrastructure layer that may already be provided by the customer's environment
+in Track 2 scenarios.
+
+For Track 1 deployments, the essential platform components—including Gitea for repository management and ArgoCD for
+application lifecycle management—will be integrated into the Orchestrator installation script. This approach streamlines
+the installation process while maintaining the necessary tooling to support GitOps-based deployment workflows for
+modular EIM services.
+
+The Edge Node agent installation scripts (or Ansible playbooks, to be determined) will be included as part of the EMF
+deployment package scripts.
+
+#### EIM Modular Service Packaging and Installation
+
+Currently, each service and manager in EIM includes its own Helm chart, with these then being added as a sub-chart
+dependency to the main [EIM Helm charts](https://github.com/open-edge-platform/infra-charts). These are then
+deployed using a GitOps flow in the
+[EMF Repository](https://github.com/open-edge-platform/edge-manageability-framework).
+
+For modular EIM services, each identified use case will have a single high level Helm chart. Each Helm chart will
+include a dependency list of the Helm charts for all EIM services that are required to support this use case as well as
+a top level configuration file. This top level configuration file will be the primary location to provide the
+configuration settings needed to deploy each service in the use case to the customer Orchestrator environment.
+
+To install the Helm chart for a specific use case, there are two options depending on the Track being used:
+
+- For Track 1, the customer will have already deployed the EMF foundational services, which includes ArgoCD for
+  application management on the Orchestrator cluster. To deploy the require Helm chart for the use case, an ArgoCD
+  profile will be created for each use case. When deploying the Orchestrator, the customer can specify the use case, or
+  use cases if more than one, during the install stage. This will trigger ArgoCD to retrieve the profile for the use
+  case and use it to install the Helm chart and configure the services as required.
+
+![Modular install flow for EIM services in Track 1](images/modular-orch-install-track1.png)
+
+- For Track 2, since the infrastructure being used will not be the current EMF foundational services but the customer's
+  own infrastructure, the Helm chart for the required use case can be downloaded by the customer and manually installed
+  using Helm commands.
+
+![Modular install flow for EIM services in Track 2](images/modular-orch-install-track2.png)
+
+#### Edge Node Agent Packaging and Installation
+
+When deploying an edge node using the current EMF deployment stack, the edge node is installed with all agents and
+configured using the onboarding manager and provisioning workflow. The agents are released as Debian packages and are
+installed using the installation script in the
+[EIM onboarding repository](https://github.com/open-edge-platform/infra-onboarding).
+
+To support modular EIM services, a new installation script will need to be created for each use case that will install
+the required agents onto an edge node environment that has already had an Ubuntu OS installed. For both tracks, the
+new installation scripts can be pulled down onto the edge node and run directly. This will perform any required
+configuration of the OS to enable communication with the Orchestrator as well as pulling down the required agent Debian
+packages from the release apt repository using standard apt commands. It will also perform any configuration of the
+agents that is needed to support the use case deployment.
+
+Below is an outline of the installation flow for the edge node agents:
+
+```mermaid
+sequenceDiagram
+  autonumber
+  participant US as User
+  participant CLI as Orchestrator CLI
+  participant RS as Release Service
+  participant EN as Edge Node
+  US ->> CLI: Request edge node installation script
+  activate CLI
+  CLI ->> RS: Retrieve edge node installation script
+  RS ->> CLI: Return installation script
+  CLI ->> US: Return installation script
+  deactivate CLI
+  US ->> EN: Copy and run installation script
+  activate EN
+  EN ->> EN: Initial node configuration
+  EN ->> EN: Update apt repositories
+  EN ->> EN: Add agent configuration settings
+  EN ->> RS: Pull required agent packages
+  RS ->> EN: Return agent packages
+  EN ->> EN: Install agents
+  EN ->> US: Report install status
+  deactivate EN
+```
+
+## Implementation Plan
+
+- EIM services installation:
+  - Create use case specific Helm chart for 2026.00 requirements.
+    - **Requirement 1:** Out-of-band Device Management.
+    - **Requirement 2:** Automated Edge Device Commissioning.
+  - Create single configurable ArgoCD profile to manage service installation.
+  - Update Orchestrator CLI to add new installation commands.
+  - Update CI to push and store new Helm charts to Release Service.
+  - Test Helm chart installation using ArgoCD.
+  - Test Helm chart installation using Helm commands.
+  - Update User Guide installation steps.
+- Edge Node agent installation:
+  - Update current installation script to be configurable based on use case.
+  - Modify agent configuration updates on start to ensure communication on install with
+    modular workflows.
+  - Test configurable installation script
+
+## Opens
+
+- Update installation flow for edge node agents to use a central environment file to list required FQDN and other
+  configuration settings and have wrapper scripts update the edge node configuration files on service start up to enable
+  immediate communication.
+  - Can also be extended to full EMF stack installation method.
+  - Installer script creates environment file as part of installation flow using FQDN from Orchestrator environment.
+- Single installer script for Orchestrator, including installer script for edge node, which installs all services needed
+  for the required use case.
+  - Can also cover installation of the current full EMF stack.