Service Instance Editions

IEF offers two service instance editions for you to choose.

Professional edition: The management plane cluster is shared by multiple users. Professional service instances allow you to manage nodes, devices, containerized applications, batch jobs, and edge-cloud messages.
Platinum edition: Users have their own management plane clusters. Platinum service instances allow you to manage large-scale nodes and deliver higher performance. In addition to the functions provided by professional service instances, functions such as node group and application mesh are supported by platinum service instances.

Table 1 lists the differences between the two editions.

**Table 1** Functions provided by the two editions
Function	Description	Professional Edition	Platinum Edition
Edge node management	Registers and manages edge nodes.	√	√
End device management	Registers end devices and binds an end device to an edge node.	√	√
Containerized application management	Delivers containerized applications to an edge node.	√	√
Edge-cloud message routing	Provides an edge-cloud message channel and supports edge-cloud message forwarding.	√	√
Multi-network access	Supports access to IEF through Internet, VPN, and Direct Connect.	√	√
Monitoring and O&M	Supports monitoring and O&M.	√	√
Batch job management	Creates and updates containerized applications in batches, and registers and updates edge nodes in batches.	√	√
Edge node group	Creates edge node groups. Multiple edge nodes with the same attributes (such as the hardware architecture) can form an edge node group for unified management.	×	√
Multi-instance	Supports multiple containerized application instances.	×	√
Exclusive clusters	Supports exclusive management plane clusters.	×	√
Application mesh	Supports service discovery and application traffic governance, such as load balancing.	×	√
Add-ons	Supports add-on management.	√	√
Kubernetes native API openness	Supports operating Kubernetes clusters of a service instance through kubectl.	×	√