Suggested exploration paths
This article refers to Platform v3.2.0. The current Platform version is v3.2.0.
Overview
🎉 Congratulations! You’ve successfully completed the quickstart guide and are now ready to continue exploring the Barbara Platform on your own.
From here, there are several exciting paths you can take — it all depends on what you’d like to do next.
Deploy your own Docker applications
In this tutorial, we focused on deploying applications only from the Marketplace to get a complete solution running as quickly as possible. However, one of Barbara’s most powerful capabilities is the ability to deploy your own custom applications, allowing you to run any logic directly on your Edge Node.
To do so, you’ll need to package your application as a Docker container, but don’t worry — it’s easier than it sounds!
If you’re ready to start building and deploying your own apps, check out our in-depth application development tutorial to become an edge developer master.
Deploy a model
Beyond applications, you can also deploy your own AI models. Barbara is an Edge AI platform, supporting both model deployment and on-device training directly on your Edge Nodes.
We support the most popular frameworks, including TensorFlow, Scikit-learn, PyTorch, and more. Through our Marketplace, you’ll also find integrations with Edge Impulse, Seldon, Ollama (for LLMs), and YOLO (for computer vision).
If you already have a model, chances are you can deploy it on Barbara.
To get started check out this article to learn how to deploy a trained TensorFlow model to your Edge Nodes. Or follow this tutorial for step-by-step guidance on deploying a PyTorch model.
Explore the Marketplace
In the quickstart, we deployed only a few Marketplace applications —but we've only scratched the surface! Our Marketplace includes over 120 ready-to-install applications, carefully curated based on customer requests and real-world industrial use cases.
You’ll find databases such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Elastic, or Redis; industrial connectors such as OPC-UA, Modbus, or BACnet; brokers such as HiveMQ, RabbitMQ, or Kafka; analytics and AI tools such as Prometheus, MLFlow or JupyterLab; partner applications such as AVEVA, Litmus, or Ignition —and many more.
Discover everything the Marketplace has to offer. Browse by category, use the search bar, or open the Complete Catalogue to explore all available applications in one place.
Add your first physical node or Virtual Machine
In the quickstart, we used hosted nodes because they’re the fastest way to start prototyping — no hardware required. However, in the real world, edge computing typically happens on physical devices or, at most, virtual machines running on those devices.
Hosted nodes are great for experimentation, but they have limited performance and cannot be used for production deployments, especially for workloads that require a GPU.
In real industrial scenarios, data usually comes from field devices such as PLCs, sensors, or other equipment connected through field buses. That’s why having access to a physical node with the right interfaces becomes essential.
If you’re ready to start working with actual hardware, check out our series of articles explaining how to download Barbara Core and install it on different types of nodes.
Discover how to configure complex networks
In the quickstart, we simplified the networking aspect as much as possible by using a hosted node with a public IP. In real-world scenarios — especially in industrial environments — we all know that networks can become extremely complex.
The Barbara Platform provides advanced networking capabilities that go far beyond simple interface configuration. These include features such as Proxy support, VLAN management, IP Tables, and Standalone Mode, which allows you to manage network settings locally from the device itself.
To dive deeper into how networking works in Barbara, visit the Networks section.
Learn more about High Availability in Barbara
In this guide, we deployed our solution on a single node. This setup works well for use cases that don’t have strict downtime requirements, since the solution will go offline temporarily during maintenance tasks — for example, when updating the node’s firmware.
However, if your use case targets critical industries, you’ll likely want your solution to run with zero downtime.
To achieve this, Barbara provides a High Availability (HA) feature that allows you to create clusters and deploy applications across them. This ensures workloads can seamlessly shift between devices to handle potential hardware issues or scheduled maintenance operations without interruption.
Additionally, Barbara includes a Virtual IP service that keeps the cluster accessible through a single IP address, regardless of which node is currently providing the service.
See how you can scale up your deployments
Managing devices one by one is relatively simple — at least while you only have a few of them. The challenge comes when you need to perform maintenance tasks across many devices simultaneously.
That’s why Barbara introduces Batches, a feature designed to centrally manage large-scale deployments involving hundreds or even thousands of nodes.
If you’d like to learn more about Batches and how they work, check out this article.
And stay tuned — we’re currently developing new features specifically aimed at simplifying large-scale node management, such as Hypervariables and Templates.
Try our sample solutions
If you’re feeling adventurous, you can also deploy one of our ready-made solutions. We’ve made available two key industrial use cases that make perfect sense at the edge: Unified Namespace (UNS) and Computer Vision.
These are fully developed examples that can serve as a foundation for your own edge solutions:
- Unified Namespace (UNS): A data architecture approach that provides a single, unified layer for information exchange across all your industrial systems.
- Computer Vision: An edge AI solution for real-time image processing, detection, and analysis directly on your devices.
Are you a developer in search of an API?
Last but not least, Barbara is an API-first platform, meaning that every functionality available through the GUI is also accessible via API.
This allows users to manage their deployments and solutions using custom scripts or external tools, and to seamlessly integrate their edge layer with corporate systems and workflows.
Check out the API documentation.
Enjoy your journey!
No matter which path you choose, you’re now fully equipped to take your first steps into edge computing with Barbara.
The most important thing is to enjoy the process — and remember, if you ever need help, don’t hesitate to reach out.
Happy deploying! 🎉