Addressing Edge Infrastructure Challenges with Immersion Cooled Storage

Not that long ago, when people used the word edge, they often meant something like a collection of IoT sensors and an edge gateway, or a single server in a telco hut.?

But the world of edge is changing. In 2024, we’re seeing an exponential explosion in demanding, intensive edge computing use cases that are driving organizations to rethink just what they mean by edge computing.

What are some of the emerging use cases??

• Autonomous vehicles: Real-time processing of sensor data for obstacle detection, path planning, and decision-making.
• Predictive maintenance: Analyzing sensor data from industrial equipment to predict and prevent failures, requiring low latency and high computational power.
• Smart retail: Facial recognition, personalized recommendations, and real-time inventory management
• Complex financial modeling: latency-sensitive calculations and local risk analytics.

And of course, AI and ML operations, which are often being added to existing edge services to augment and extend their impact. For example, AI is now being implemented at the edge to optimize 5G network performance and is being used to refine supply chains in warehouses and at ports.

These new edge workloads are unusually demanding, they cannot run on an edge gateway or a single server. They typically require:

1. Intensive compute, often using dozens of specialized processors.?
2. Massive amounts of storage to cope with enormous data sets.?
3. Leading-edge front-end and back-end networking infrastructure.

To make matters worse, in many cases, edge infrastructure is commonly deployed in environments that aren’t built with data center class cooling, power distribution, or on-site personnel. Distinctive performance needs and deployment locations are pushing organizations to think creatively, to include new and distinctive technologies in their edge infrastructure deployments, to build infrastructures that are:

• Performant: Built for game-changing processing, latency, and throughput.
• Flexible: Able to support future workloads that are almost unimaginable today.
• Scalable: Capable of handling overwhelming, petabyte-scale data sets.
• Resilient: Functional 24/7 without routine on-site maintenance.
• Compact: Designed for smaller spaces, supporting higher densities.
• Rugged: Able to operate for years without regular maintenance.
• Efficient: Provide maximum benefit per watt.

Conventional data center compute, storage, and networking resources can’t meet these requirements, simply because they weren’t designed to. Fortunately, vendors see the challenge and are working to break through legacy limitations by rethinking the designs and functionality of edge infrastructure.

New technologies are beginning to come to the edge. For example, storage, once a mature, fairly predictable technology, is now being rethought. Form factors like E1.L and E1.S are giving organizations entirely new performance, scale, and power profiles, using physical designs that are more suitable for the space-constrained and power-restricted environments commonly used?for edge. These new technologies can replace hard drives or legacy flash drives while boosting capacity, durability, and energy efficiency.

But the design rethinks aren’t simply limited to using new flash form factors. Many edge environments are too small or too power-constrained to support large, noisy Computer Room Air Conditioning Units (CRACs) that work best with regular on-site maintenance. Because of these constraints, many organizations need an alternative to conventional data center storage -- one that doesn’t require an air conditioning unit to perform effectively.

In an industry-first, Hypertec has addressed the challenges of edge storage with our groundbreaking 1U CIARA TRIDENT iS515R-G6 server. This is the world’s first 1U immersion-born storage server with a capacity of nearly 1 Petabyte of hot-swappable, lightning-fast NVMe drives to solve the demanding requirements of edge infrastructure.?

This new product, sitting within our comprehensive portfolio of high-density immersion-born servers, gives organizations a new platform to solve the functional and environmental challenges of edge infrastructure without compromising performance, efficiency, and value.?

As an immersion-born storage server, we designed it from the ground up for full functionality in an immersion environment. Drives, PCIe slots, and motherboard I/O are strategically located at the top of the tank, making it highly serviceable.?

The CIARA TRIDENT iS515R-G6 server is ideal for demanding edge services, including complex financial modeling and AI and ML operations. Our server offers cutting-edge features including 1 Petabyte of hot-swappable, NVMe drives, an AMD EPYC 9004 Processor, and 2 PCIe x16 Gen 5 slots for maximum I/O -- ensuring rapid data processing, low latency, high throughput, and value for years to come.?

Organizations using the new CIARA TIRDENT can expect:

1. Substantially faster read-write speeds, enabling faster data processing and lower latency at the edge, crucial for real-time applications like IoT or AI.
2. Scale up to a petabyte of data, making it useful for a wide range of demanding applications, as well as providing ample capacity for years to come.
3. No heat-related throttling because it’s immersion-cooled, boosting performance and maximizing data throughput.
4. Operation in wider temperature ranges, supporting challenging edge locations with limited climate control.
5. Reduced energy costs and carbon footprint because immersion cooling uses less energy than traditional air conditioning
6. Enhanced longevity because Immersion cooling protects servers from dust, moisture, and corrosion, potentially extending their lifespan and reducing hardware replacement costs.
7. Reduced noise due to no fans, crucial in noise-sensitive edge environments.
8. Denser server deployments and potentially smaller edge data centers, saving space and reducing construction costs.

In short, we have rethought what storage should be at the edge, inventing a new platform to solve all your challenges.?

For a closer look at the CIARA TRIDENT iS515R-G6 storage server, visit our product page.

To learn more about the Hypertec advantage, visit our Immersion Cooling Hub.?