At Edge Field Day 3, we had a new presenter to the Field Day family in OnLogic. The surprise was that their technology was featured in two other #EFD3 presentations. I also realized, right before OnLogic’s presentation, that I had an OnLogic PC sitting in my basement running a Private LTE Gateway for GXC. So why are so many Edge companies and even Private Cellular companies using OnLogic computers? Let’s find out.
As I discussed after Edge Field Day 1, the Intel NUC was king when it came to Edge computing hardware. I personally am running several Intel NUC computers as my edge devices and know of many organizations using NUCs at the edge. Then we had an announcement that Intel was discontinuing their NUC line and transitioning over to partners such as ASUS. This opened a doorway for the competition to step up with custom boards that fit specific edge use cases. Who would take over the mantle of dominance from the Intel NUC at the edge?
Enter OnLogic.
Started from a kitchen table, OnLogic has grown to be known across the industry for building quality custom ruggedized and small form factor pc computers for all kinds of use cases. With the transition from the data center to the cloud and now down to the edge, OnLogic has positioned themselves for filling that gap left over from the exit by Intel. Intel being OnLogic’s largest partner and a logical successor.
Hardware
OnLogic has five product lines of devices. The Helix and Factor lines are for the industrial edge with compact sizes down to Raspberry Pi CM4 boards. The Tacton line is a series of All-in-one panel devices. The Karbon line are OnLogic’s ruggedized computer line. Lastly, the OnLogic Edge Server lines provided greater compute capabilities at the edge. Most of the OnLogic product lines operate on Intel x86 based processors, but they also have Raspberry Pi CM4 product operating on ARM. Whichever product line best fits your use case just depends on your Edge needs.
Edge Use Cases
What we heard time and time again, Edge computing is necessary for a number of reasons that are different than what we have been designing compute for the cloud or data center. There are environmental and security reasons that a full rack 1U server would fail in the environments that Edge computing is tackling.
Containers have started to dominate the data center and are fundamental to the edge. The portability and flexibility of containerized computing opens possibilities that were impossible or difficult to deploy at the edge in the past.
From Energy to Logistics to Smart City and Smart Agriculture, edge computing is the next iteration of compute. These are just some of the industries that OnLogic shared as embracing their Edge computers. I would add restaurants in that retail category, although those are often dominated by more custom devices or iPads.
All of these industries have varying needs but often come down to portability, compactness, and both physical and technological security. These devices may be installed in environments of high humidity or freezing temperature. They may be located in sites where a would be thief is unable to control themselves. They may need to fit in situations where a specific sized computer may be required.
Many edge sites need data to be processed as close as possible for latency reduction. There may be issues with connectivity options at sites, such as within a remote mine, where high speed reliable fiber is challenging. Bringing the compute to the edge helps reduce these risks.
Avassa used an OnLogic Karbon 400 ruggedized computer for their demo at EFD3 to show off the device controlling their containerized applications.
Zededa also used a OnLogic Helix 511 for their live demo of their centralized orchestrator.
Private Cellular
How many of those use cases can benefit from Private Cellular and deployed Edge compute? As I mentioned at the beginning, as I was preparing for OnLogic’s presentation at EFD3, I suddenly came to a realization. I had an OnLogic computer sitting in my basement without me thinking about who built it.
As I’ve written several times, GXC sent me a demo kit to test their outdoor mesh radio kit. My focus in other blog posts about GXC has been on the benefits of private cellular. Included in that GXC kit was an OnLogic Helix edge computer. Why did GXC include an Edge computer in their Private Cellular Mesh kit?
Well, that comes down to the fact that cloud hosted private cellular cores needs a local drop off gateway to allow private cellular to route data traffic at the edge. The LTE core contains a Packet Switching Gateway and the 5G core has a User Plane Function that operate in similar ways.
GXC calls this device, that is sitting in my basement to drop off the user data plane, the Onyx Edge.
If you want to operate a Private Cellular network at the edge, say in a COW (Cell on Wheels), you need to drop the traffic off somewhere. If you are going for reduced latency or to protect against WAN connectivity issues, you may want to handle applications and compute at the edge as well.
Using an OnLogic edge computer to drop the traffic off and then using containers on the same edge computer, or another edge computer at the same site and to process the data, you can reduce the environmental risks at the edge. Designing applications this way reduces and protects the site from issues as many edge use cases need.
Edge Applications Benefit from OnLogic
When it comes to the edge, there are multiple pieces needed. The physical hardware is just as important as the application orchestrator, application, networking, and storage. Using hardware from OnLogic that is ruggedized or custom built for specific use cases solves the biggest issue of the Intel NUC at some edge sites.
Whether you are designing your edge to use ruggedized compute in a remote site or building a private cellular site, OnLogic has edge compute devices that may fit your requirements.
