Supermicro introduced a sealed pole-mounted server for 5G and ‘intelligent edge’ applications at Embedded World last week.

Sealed to IP65, inside is a choice of Intel Xeon D or 2nd Gen Xeon Scalable processors, and three PCI-E expansion slots for GPU or FPGA accelerator cards.

For example, the Xeon D-2183IT is a 100W TDP processor with 16 cores (32 threads) and the mother board can support upto 512Gbyte of DDR4 ECC LRDIMM or up to 256Gbyte of DDR4 ECC RDIMM (up to 2400MHz) in four DIMM slots.

The systems are ruggedised for outdoor telecom use, being GR-487-CORE, and GR-3108-CORE compliant alongside their IP65 rating.

Inside is a heater, heat exchanger and fans (including redundant fans) for operation across -40°C to +50°C (depending on configuration).
The server is 319 x 821 x 258mm and weighs 46kg.
Product part number is SYS-E403-9D-16C-IPD2, and applications are foreseen in

5G RAN

• Virtualised network element such as DU
• FPGA accelerator card
• O-RAN or other NFV software stack
• Allows widespread network deployment and upgrades

Edge AI Inferencing

• Local processing for smart city and industrial
• GPU accelerator card
• EGX or other AI software stack
• Enables rapid decisions for real-time applications

Video (in sporting venues, for example)

• Localised content delivery
• Maximum memory and storage
• Containerised video transcoding platform
• Supports multiple end devices with dynamic content formatting