You can deploy, update, or remove applications on a device by updating the list of applications in the device specification.

When the Red Hat Edge Manager agent checks in and detects the change in the specification, the agent downloads any new or updated application packages and images from an OCI-compatible registry. Then, the agent deploys the packages to the appropriate application runtime or removes them from that runtime.

Red Hat Edge Manager supports the following application types:

• Quadlet: Podman Quadlet and systemd workloads.
• Container: Single-container workloads.
• Compose: Multi-container workloads managed by Podman Compose.
• Helm: Helm chart workloads deployed on MicroShift.
• VM: KVM virtual machines running alongside container workloads on the same device.

With VM applications, you can deploy and manage KVM virtual machines through the same Red Hat Edge Manager console and CLI that you use for container applications. VM applications require edge devices running Red Hat Enterprise Linux with KVM/Libvirt support and user-supplied qcow2 disk images packaged as OCI container disk images.

You can also discover and deploy applications from the Software Catalog in the Flight Control web console. The catalog provides a curated list of applications and guides you through required deployment parameters with validation and help text.