The highly anticipated 5G telecommunication technology has features such as high bandwidth, broad data connection, and low latency. Since its advent in 2019, 5G has been viewed as a crucial technology for smart services such as smart cities and smart transportation. However, 5G telecommunication technology has a narrower band signal coverage, compared to 4G. Given that some applied services, such as smart transportation, have extremely high requirements for network latency, telecommunication companies must build a wide range of small base stations to meet the needs of edge computing.
Hence, Chenbro launched the RM252/RM352 series server chassis which are designed specifically for the telecommunication industry. The edge computing base station solution was designed based on the O-RAN architecture. This solution has high usability and conforms to the telecommunication industry regulations. The RM252/RM352 can provide resources for edge computing and assist telecommunication companies to seize the immense business opportunities in the 5G era.
Chenbro's Product Development Project Manager, Lee Yu-Tzu, stated that although the RM252 and RM352 have slight differences in product positioning, they are all specifically designed for the telecommunication industry. First of all, both products adopt the OTII (Open Telecom IT Infrastructure), jointly developed by Intel and China's telecommunication industry, which reduces operating costs and enhances business agility. Secondly, the products adopt a 450mm ultra-short depth chassis design with a dual-processor motherboard that supports the SSI EEB specification. In addition to providing high-performance computing capabilities, it can also optimize space in the data center.
Thirdly, the RM252/RM352 series offer FIO (Front I/O) and RIO (Rear I/O) connection mechanisms, allowing operators to have a full understanding of the devices' operating status at the front end. Operators can also install additional devices. Besides meeting the requirements of different application scenarios, the two products can also reduce operating costs. In order to facilitate the maintenance of equipment, the two products adopt the latest disassembly tool-free design in addition to a dual redundant power supply with built-in hot-swap functions. This not only greatly reduces maintenance time but also improves the reliability of the system. It is worth noting that the two products adopt a flexible fan design, which was designed based on the limited space for microcell base stations and the relatively harsh environments where they are deployed. This design allows the RM252/RM352 to operate normally even in a scorching-hot environment without air conditioning.
Tom Tsai, Project Manager at Chenbro, said that in addition to enhancing the reliability of the products, many components in the two products adopted modular designs. In other words, when encountering unfortunate incidents, such as hardware equipment failures or when needing to install an expansion card, an operator can replace or add components in the shortest amount of time, lowering service interrupted time to the minimum.
The RM252 series server is 2U in height and is equipped with two 800W power supplies. It can be installed at most three full-height or seven half-height PCIe expansion cards, such as the FPGA accelerator to boost edge computing performance. The product comes with a SATA hard-disk drive by default. If you need to store large amounts of data, you can also use an NVMe all-flash hard-disk drive to enhance overall I/O performance. The RM352 series server is 3U in height and is equipped with two 1600W power supplies, which can be installed at most eight full-height PCIe expansion cards, such as the GPU or FPGA accelerators to boost machine learning performance.
According to Chenbro's plans, the Company will continue to build small base stations according to the requirements of the telecommunication industry. The Company will adjust the specifications of the RM252/RM352 series server chassis and add more model types to assist telecommunication companies to seize the immense business opportunities in the 5G era.
Chenbro released a 2U highly expandable server chassis and a 3U GPGPU server chassis, providing more options for edge computing deployment
