Supermicro reveals new outdoor systems for data centers
Supermicro Computer, a specialist in computing, storage and networking solutions, has announced its latest edge system, designed to brave the elements as an outdoor setup.
The Outdoor Edge Systems includes IP65 enclosure-based servers for 5G RAN, AI inferencing, and other edge-focused applications based on Intel Xeon D processors and 2nd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors.
Supermicro says the new systems are ideal for harsh outdoor environments and support the industry's movement toward open source software and disaggregated hardware.
"Supermicro's highly configurable SuperServers for extreme outdoor use give data center and telco operators new deployment options," says Supermicro president and chief executive officer Charles Liang.
"These solutions continue Supermicro's leadership for high performance, efficient IT solutions for a reduced total cost of ownership (TCO)."
In addition to CPU options, Supermicro's new systems use the latest FPGA and GPU acceleration with three PCI-E slots for expansion capability.
Supermicro says this is critical for enhanced real-time edge AI inferencing via GPU cards and supporting 5G RAN software plus open-standard site-to-site communication with FPGA accelerator cards.
With SSD, M.2, and EDSFF storage capabilities, these ruggedized servers can also distribute cached media content locally or store video surveillance and other sensitive data.
The 5G systems can be configured with a variety of processor and memory combinations so customers can tailor their solutions to push data center remote management to the intelligent edge.
Supermicro's usage of popular virtualization and container-optimized software such as Kubernetes enables efficient facilitation of these interactions and has multiple servers certified NGC-Ready for Edge to extend AI capabilities across public and private networks.
Supermicro says its membership in the O-RAN Alliance supports its initiative to promote a cloud-native, open 5G RAN architecture for the evolution of 4G to 5G networks.
Since joining the O-RAN Alliance, Supermicro has developed reference solutions with several leading telecom operators and software stack providers.
This compact pole-mounted solution allows for rapid rollout of adaptable 5G networks with virtually zero real estate.
The announcement comes as the company puts more focus on the environmental impact of data centers.
In December 2019 Supermicro released a report revealing the failure of data centers to recognise the importance of green initiatives as part of their infrastructure buildouts, leading to increasing data center costs and environmental impacts.
The survey, which quizzed more than 5,000 IT professionals, found that 86% of businesses don't consider the environmental impact of their facilities to be an important factor for their data centers.
A further 22% of respondents noted that "environmental considerations" were too expensive for them to be considered a priority for their company – indicating a significant lack of understanding of the ROI of green computing solutions.
