Performance boost for rugged edge computing markets

As Server-on-Modules form the technology basis for complementary rugged server designs, developers can use the new conga-B7E3 modules as a drop-in replacement to boost performance within their closed loop engineering design cycles in manifold rugged edge applications.

Use cases include Industry 4.0, smart robot cells with collaborative robotics, autonomous robotic and logistics vehicles, as well as virtualised on-premise equipment in harsh environments to perform functions such as industrial routing, firewall security, and VPN technologies - optionally in combination with various real-time controls and neural network computing for Artificial Intelligence (AI).

"Embedded edge servers must always meet highest performance requirements for harsh environmental conditions," explained Martin Danzer, Director Product Management at congatec. "Customers who design with Server-on-Modules can implement these features fairly easily in their edge server platforms through closed loop migrations, these modules are highly software compatible with competing solutions and address the various functions of our continuously growing Server-on-Module portfolio thanks to standardised APIs."

"It's great to see customers like congatec and the industry use the AMD EPYC Embedded 3000 processor in unique ways that leverage the EPYC architecture's datacentre heritage and experience," said Stephen Turnbull, Director of Product Marketing, Embedded Solutions, AMD. "By using the new congatec standardised server-on-modules equipped with our AMD EPYC Embedded 3000 system on a chip, customers can build and equip new modular server platforms with the performance required for potential edge compute applications."

Also attractive for edge server deployments is the support of the extended temperature range (-40 to +85°C) for selected versions and the comprehensive RAS (reliability, availability and serviceability) features common to all versions. They enable the same efficient remote system monitoring, management and maintenance capabilities to optimise the total cost of ownership (TCO) in distributed deployments as known from commercial-grade data centres. 

Edge applications benefit from the hardware-integrated virtualisation and leading-edge security features from the AMD EPYC Embedded 3000 SoC that includes Secure Boot System, Secure Memory Encryption (SME) and Secure Encrypted Virtualisation (SEV), as well as a secure migration channel between two SEV-capable platforms. 

Support is also given for IPsec with integrated crypto acceleration. As a consequence, even the server administrator does not have access to such an encrypted Virtual Machine (VM). This is important for the high security required by many edge server services, which must enable multi-vendor applications in Industry 4.0 automation while helping ward off sabotage attempts by hackers.