NanoStreams: Codesigned Microservers for Edge Analytics in Real Time

NanoStreams explores the design, implementation,and system software stack of micro-servers aimed at processingdata in-situ and in real time. These micro-servers can serve theemerging Edge computing ecosystem, namely the provisioningof advanced computational, storage, and networking capabilitynear data sources to achieve both low latency event processingand high throughput analytical processing, before consideringoff-loading some of this processing to high-capacity datacentres.NanoStreams explores a scale-out micro-server architecture thatcan achieve equivalent QoS to that of conventional rack-mountedservers for high-capacity datacentres, but with dramaticallyreduced form factors and power consumption. To this end,NanoStreams introduces novel solutions in programmable & con-figurable hardware accelerators, as well as the system softwarestack used to access, share, and program those accelerators.Our NanoStreams micro-server prototype has demonstrated 5.5×higher energy-efficiency than a standard Xeon Server. Simulationsof the microserver’s memory system extended to leveragehybrid DDR/NVM main memory indicated 5× higher energyefficiencythan a conventional DDR-based system.