ADLINK Technology and Illinois-based manufacturer Charles Industries have demonstrated the industry’s first micro-edge low-latency AI solution that can be co-located on LTE small cell poles or with emerging 5G radios.
The California-based edge solution provider has also announced a deal with Google Cloud to integrate its hardware and software solutions with Google Cloud IoT offerings, providing customers with an easier path to harness and analyse critical operational data.
The new co-location solution, with artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning, is a compact low-profile pole or wall mountable unit based on an integration of ADLINK’s latest MECS-7210-AI multi-access edge computing server and Charles’ SC102 micro edge enclosure. The solution is suited for outdoor telecom use cases; it is being positioned as a means for carriers and communities globally to provide a range of new services, including autonomous vehicles, virtual and augmented reality applications, vision analytics.
The MECS-7210 Edge Server and SC102 enclosure are available as an integrated unit as well as separately. The solution is being demonstrated this week at the NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference.
ADLINK’s MECS-7210 is a high performance, cost effective commercial-off-the-shelf platform in a small footprint 2U chassis with 420mm of system depth. It is powered by dual-socket Intel Xeon Scalable processors, and designed for all I/O front access, dust prevention, wide operation temperature. It features dual full-height full-length PCIe expansion slots reserved for access to acceleration hardware (FGPA/GPU).
ADLINK’s MECS-7210 is among the first platforms to fully comply with Open Telecom IT Infrastructure (OTII), defined by Open Data Center Committee to meet 5G requirements of ultra-low latency, high bandwidth, real-time access to radio network.
Charles’ SC102 Micro-Edge Enclosure has been custom-designed for the MECS-7210, using advanced thermal modelling to ensure reliable, high-end AI and compute equipment performance in harsh outdoor operating environments.
ADLINK’s edge hardware and software quickly connects previously unconnected operational equipment and sensors. By tapping into native communication protocols, data can be captured and streamed at the edge and securely between devices, databases and IoT cloud platforms. This enables easy visualisation and analysis of data, said ADLINK.
Its integration with Google Cloud, a suite of cloud computing services running on the same infrastructure Google uses for its end-user products, means removes the need for programming, it said. Customers can use the combination to streamline operations, make maintenance predictions, and improve quality.
Mario Finocchiaro, head of go-to-market at Google Cloud IoT, commented: “Companies are seeking hardware solutions that are pre-integrated with Google Cloud IoT. Partnering with ADLINK gives our customers and partners options for IoT devices and data sources ready to use out of the box.”
Lawrence Ross, general manager of ADLINK’s software and solutions business, said: “Because our area of expertise is at the edge, it’s important for us to work with cloud computing experts, such as Google Cloud, to provide the best end-to-end IoT solutions in the industry. We’re also excited to bring GCP’s scale and best-in-class security to our Digital Experiment offering, which is essentially a starting point for a customer’s IoT journey.”
Meanwhile, ADLINK has partnered with Minneapolis-based Entrust Datacard , a provider of identity technology solutions, to bring higher security to industrial data processing in edge-based systems. The pair will demonstrate how trust at the edge is vital to securing the manufacturing environment and making Industry 4.0 a reality at Hannover Messe at the start of next month.
Ross said: “Security is a priority for companies looking to start their Industry 4.0 journey and it is at the centre of our partnership with Entrust Datacard and the solutions we are showcasing together at Hannover Messe. Our customers have confidence that they can quickly ingest and move data to the best location for processing and analysing, adding advanced capabilities such as deep learning, whilst ensuring security from the device to the enterprise.”
Josh Jabs, general manager of IoT solutions at Entrust Datacard, commented: “The partnership with ADLINK enables secure communication for data streams at the edge – while at rest, in motion and in use – with automation and control not seen in other solutions. We’re excited to be presenting this capability as part of the ADLINK booth throughout the show.”
