@vipulgupta2048

Deploying Python on the edge

Mistakes, pain and learnings of scaling Python applications on millions of IoT devices

I am Vipul!

@vipulgupta2048

We-pull

Product Owner & Documentation Lead at balena
Run a docs initiative called Mixster
Volunteers @ PyCon India & ALiAS
Pronouns: He/him/his

@vipulgupta2048

This is a Raspberry Pi

@vipulgupta2048

It ain't much ...

@vipulgupta2048

Devices like this power...

CO2 sensors, farms, smart dustbins, cars, locks, your room, home devices...

@vipulgupta2048

and more like this...

Underwater drones, satellites, parking, and your talking wireless speakers

@vipulgupta2048

The challenges

With smart cities & even your toaster running applications.
The stakes have never been higher

While building software is hard.

@vipulgupta2048

Building it right for IoT is painful.

@vipulgupta2048

@vipulgupta2048

Considerations when selecting
an IoT device

Architecture?
CPU, RAM, GPU?
Wifi/ethernet/sim?
Peripherals needed?
TPM chips?
GPIO headers?

@vipulgupta2048

Considerations using
Python for IoT

Is it supported on ARM v8?
Is 4GB of RAM enough to run it?
Does the use-case need internet?
Is there a gstreamer wrapper library?
Does it support microcontrollers?

@vipulgupta2048

@vipulgupta2048

Ideating your IoT product

What resources you need?
What limitations your usecase has?
What hardware is available out there?
Repeat.

Your will decide if your product or dies before launch. No pressure.

@vipulgupta2048

And
That's what we are talking about today

@vipulgupta2048

Tight feedback loops between environments

Dev == testing == staging == prod

@vipulgupta2048

Build an SBOM

Track, assess and obsess

@vipulgupta2048

@vipulgupta2048

@vipulgupta2048

"It works on my system"

Adding another dimension of hell

@vipulgupta2048

Memory Management and Resource Constraints

@vipulgupta2048

Let me tell you a story ...

@vipulgupta2048

Storage Considerations for IoT Devices

SD cards in production. Toxic relationship.
Go easy on storing all your print() and logging.info()
Use services like Datadog to store your logs.

@vipulgupta2048

Reproducible Self-Healing Setup

Recovery of the device is better than crashlooping
Proper crash reporting pays dividends
If you have to reboot, then you are doing wrong

@vipulgupta2048

Make sure your code

Retries with exponential backoffs
Can take into account race conditions
- Doesn't rely on timing but on eventual consistency
Perform setup or teardown processes
Has a "heartbeat" comms

@vipulgupta2048

Building Fault-Tolerant Applications

Handle intermittent network issues gracefully.
Prevent excessive bandwidth consumption.
Don't be using your swap memory.
Connect your peripherals on runtime, not bootime

@vipulgupta2048

@vipulgupta2048

Going beyond the code

HiTL pipelines for testing
Choosing a space-efficient embedded OS
Keep a way to remotely access a device
Communication infra optimized for IoT
- Use MQTT instead of HTTPS
- Use pub-sub model
- Account for flaky connectivity

@vipulgupta2048

But Vipul, how can I use this now at work?

@vipulgupta2048

And, that's about it!

Questions? Collaborate? Work with us? Reach out!

Vipul Gupta

Reviews cheesecakes, solves GitHub issues & "rights" docs

And, that's about it!

Questions? Collaborate? Work with us? Reach out!

Vipul Gupta

Reviews cheesecakes, solves GitHub issues & "rights" docs

Credits

https://acoptex.com/wp/overview-of-raspberry-pi-4-model-b/
https://pythondev.readthedocs.io/platforms.html
https://imgflip.com for the memes
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Smart-Parking-System-Talking-of-the-above-mentioned-figure-it-depicts-a-parking-area_fig1_303842610
https://mixster.dev/2022/10/18/no-soldering-ambient-lighting/
https://blog.balena.io/assets/2023/02/os-testing-autokit-rig.png
https://blog.upbound.io/hashicorp-bsl-license-change
https://www.cisa.gov/sbom
https://github.com/balena-io-examples/balena-python-hello-world
https://raspberrypi.org

[PyDelhiConf '23] Deploying Python on the edge: Mistakes, pain and leanings of scaling Python applications on millions of IoT devices

By Vipul Gupta

[PyDelhiConf '23] Deploying Python on the edge: Mistakes, pain and leanings of scaling Python applications on millions of IoT devices

Unlock the power of Python on the edge! Optimize your deployments for resource-constrained uptime-critical environments. Join the session to level up your IoT applications using Python.

1,007

Vipul Gupta

Vipul Gupta is an engineer, documentarian, and community organizer. He works on eliminatin critical bottlenecks in hardware testing. He's a GitHub Star. He uns GitTogether Delhi and Mixster, an initiative to "right" technical docs for startups.

Deploying Python on the edge

I am Vipul!

This is a Raspberry Pi

It ain't much ...

Devices like this power...

and more like this...

The challenges

While building software is hard.

Building it right for IoT is painful.

Considerations when selecting an IoT device

Considerations using Python for IoT

Ideating your IoT product

And That's what we are talking about today

Tight feedback loops between environments

Dev == testing == staging == prod

Build an SBOM

"It works on my system"

Memory Management and Resource Constraints

Storage Considerations for IoT Devices

Reproducible Self-Healing Setup

Make sure your code

Building Fault-Tolerant Applications

Going beyond the code

But Vipul, how can I use this now at work?

And, that's about it!

And, that's about it!

Credits

[PyDelhiConf '23] Deploying Python on the edge: Mistakes, pain and leanings of scaling Python applications on millions of IoT devices

More from Vipul Gupta

Considerations when selecting
an IoT device

Considerations using
Python for IoT

And
That's what we are talking about today