Enterprise Compute Moving to the Edge
Discover why enterprise compute is moving to edge processing to help companies with transaction responsiveness, service scalability, and data sovereignty.
Solidigm Drives Edge Efficiency With Customer Innovation
When it comes to engagement in the technology landscape there are several paths forward. Much like coming to a fork in the road, as penned by Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” the path forward can be daunting. We have generally heard this commonly referred to as the easy path, the hard path, and even the wrong path. This concept is important when it comes to determining what technology roadmaps look like, what products need to support, even what revenue potential exists. The unusual part about the concept of the fork in the road is that in most cases it refers to a single individual, a single decision, or a single outcome. What a disheartening thought to feel that one is all alone in this process! How do we decide which path is the right path? Especially when none of the paths represented is easy.
In a lot of cases in the technology world, this can be daunting. Many relationships in technology commerce come in the form of a retail-like experience. They are very transactional. A customer walks into a store, grabs items of interest, walks up to pay, then leaves. They have little to no interaction with staff, cashier, or even the support staff. This works in some cases, and sometimes it is all that is needed. However, when it comes to complex, intricate, and innovative solutions, sometimes there is a need for more than just that cha-ching.
Ocient works hard to implement things in a very nimble and collaborative way. The Ocient team is easy to work with because they know what they are doing.
That is where Solidigm drives have the edge. We focus on customer engagement strategy and success. There are very few modern technological advances that have not involved a bit more engagement and strategy, especially as we see the move to edge environments. The need to drive for edge efficiency, edge robustness, edge capacity, edge performance, all come from a collaborative relationship and environment. This is where the team at Solidigm has dedicated our engagement efforts. We provide our customers the support, solutions, and data they need to make informed, successful deployments of data storage at the edge.
To better understand this collaborative innovation, we want to showcase some of the solutions that exist today from our direct customers and their end customers. The more people that are on the path together, the more successful the team that reaches the next fork in the road.
Edge storage in healthcare
When it comes to personal health, we want our medical professionals to have the best technology available. If our life requires us to take the next fork in the road related to a medical condition that needs to be diagnosed or treated, we don’t have to be alone. This is showcased by the work done with Solidigm collaborators like PEAK:AIO, MONAI, and Scan Computers. Solidigm did not focus on just a transactional situation, but leveraged expertise, had discussions, enabled collaboration, and helped enable amazing results in vital areas like healthcare.
PEAK:AIO has consistently set the benchmark for AI storage solutions, driving innovation across the industry. Their latest collaboration with Solidigm pushes even further and allows us to deliver unprecedented performance while overcoming the industry’s toughest challenges—power, density, and cost. It’s a game-changer that enables our clients to achieve much more, with less cost and in less space.
Learn more about our collaboration with PEAK:AIO, MONAI, and Scan Computers in this article: PEAK:AIO, MONAI, and Solidigm: Revolutionizing Storage for Medical AI.
Edge solutions for challenging environments
Another innovation comes from working with collaborators on solutions they designed for challenging environments. Cheetah RAID designed a solution for use in rugged deployments, intended to be used at the edge where they needed storage solutions that could hold up to severe stresses. This is where Solidigm SSDs came into the picture, enabled by a collaborative team from both companies to see it through, providing the Cheetah Raptor as a successful product for customers.
Solidigm QLC SSDs offer an impressive combination of capacity, performance, and reliability as a solution to overcome this challenge.
Learn more about our collaboration with Cheetah RAID in this article: Empowering AI at the Edge.
Edge in mobile search and rescue
One step closer to the edge is the collaboration between Antillion and Solidigm. This solution moves from a traditional data-center-like edge closet or an edge server on a shelf and puts the truly mobile computing solution into the hands of search and rescue. By leveraging resources at both companies, the best overall product selection and design found, eliminated, mitigated, and resolved key technology challenges. Solidigm collaborating with Antillion proved to find the right overall fit for Antillion’s next-generation product that led down the path of innovative advances, creating an alternative path.
Integrating Solidigm’s E1.S and E1.L solid-state drives (SSDs) into its designs has led to significant advancements. In the past, designing compact computing solutions often required sacrificing storage capacity and performance due to physical constraints. However, with Solidigm’s cutting-edge NVMe SSDs, Antillion has been able to dramatically increase storage density without compromising on speed or efficiency.
Learn more about our collaboration with Antillion in this article: Antillion and Solidigm: Driving Innovation at the Edge
Storage in edge data centers
When we step outside the data center toward the edge, we don’t always consider that a data center can be in a shipping container too. We generally assume shipping containers only have boxes of products that we ordered from Amazon, UPS, FedEx or others. But in this case, running workloads in a container has a whole new meaning and value. Working with collaborators like DUG and VAST further validates that the Solidigm engagement is not only valuable, but a key reason for success. Even if you sell products all day, it’s developing relationships with your customers that continues to drive innovation at every fork in the road. These relationships and the solutions that come from them are much more valuable than a simple transactional attitude.
Having Solidigm SSD storage in our infrastructure allows us to manage these high-random IOPS workloads effectively. It gives us the ability to scale while maintaining speed and efficiency.
Learn more about our collaboration with DUG and VAST Data in this article: DUG Unlocks Faster RNA Sequencing with VAST Data Platform & Solidigm™ Storage
Solidigm SSDs take storage to the edge
As you explore your edge computing needs, whether for HPCaaS, AI workloads, environmental challenges, or simply not localized to a warehouse data center, Solidigm solutions are designed to support your needs. You see this in the portfolio of products we offer that provide engagement in those spaces. Our friends at the Futurum Group hosted the 2024 Six Five Summit where Solidigm was fortunate enough to discuss its portfolio and the focus on the edge during that event.
This is, by no means, a comprehensive list of edge deployments utilizing Solidigm products. This simply highlights the depth and breadth of our available resources and zeal to engage with our customers to deliver success for all. Taking the path less travelled, more travelled, even the path not planned to be travelled, can be successful with the right team walking beside you on that journey.
Solidigm is at the forefront of providing innovative solutions to the unique challenges of edge storage, ensuring reliability and performance in decentralized computing environments.
Watch the video: Unveiling the Future of AI and Data Storage
Conclusion
When evaluating workloads, the location of the data can be ambiguous. Is it close, like in Direct Attach Storage (DAS)? it is it far, as in Networked Attached Storage (NAS)? Is the workload located near the data source, edge computing? These considerations can be evaluated with many different lenses. Dave Sierra recently penned Data’s Big Moment: Network Attached Storage is Fueling the AI Surge, and at first look, you will note there is no specific reference to the hardware location. It can be anywhere: core, edge, near edge, far edge. Pick your target location and Solidigm will focus on enabling data anywhere and everywhere with the right SSDs. Ensuring that your valuable information is managed effectively, with edge efficiency.
About the Author
Scott Shadley is Director of Leadership Narrative and Evangelist at Solidigm, where his focus is on efforts to drive adoption of new storage technologies, including computational storage, storage-based AI, and post-quantum cryptography. Scott brings over 25 years of experience in the semiconductor and storage space, where he has played a key role in both engineering and customer-focused roles.
