More is Different: Prototyping and Analyzing a New Form of Edge Server with Massive Mobile SoCs

Explore a groundbreaking 20-minute conference talk from USENIX ATC '24 that introduces a novel edge server design called SoC Cluster. Delve into the prototype development of a 2U rack housing 60 Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 SoCs, interconnected through an on-chip network. Discover how this innovative approach addresses the significant energy consumption challenges in edge clouds. Learn about the successful commercialization and deployment of SoC Clusters in edge environments, with a focus on cloud gaming as the primary workload. Examine the research team's efforts to evaluate the SoC Cluster's efficiency for generalized edge workloads through a custom benchmark suite, assessing performance metrics for video transcoding and deep learning inference. Gain insights from the comprehensive measurement study comparing SoC Clusters with traditional edge servers in terms of electricity usage and monetary cost. Understand the conditions under which mobile SoCs demonstrate superior energy efficiency and their ability to scale power consumption with varying workloads. Explore the implications of this research for future refinements and broader deployment of SoC Clusters in diverse edge computing scenarios.