A young child smiling as a pair of hands apply a stethoscope to the child’s chest.

Edge computing accelerates life-saving missions

4 min read
When a conflict breaks out or disaster strikes, speed is of the essence for this renowned international non-governmental organization (NGO). Its mission is to deliver medical assistance to people whose lives have been disrupted by armed conflict, natural and man-made disasters, and other emergency situations. To make its services more impactful and save as many lives as possible, the organization must rapidly and effectively mobilize resources—not just people and emergency supplies, but IT systems.

 

The NGO’s teams increasingly rely on digital tools and data to coordinate humanitarian efforts and gain insight into field operations. It’s vital for these systems to remain responsive and secure—making the organization’s choice of underlying infrastructure a key priority.

 

To support its complex array of field sites, users, and local infrastructures, the organization needed a flexible solution that it could deploy rapidly and cost-effectively.

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After evaluating several options, the NGO determined that the Lenovo ThinkSystem SE350 Edge server offered a solution for its unique requirements.

 

Designed specifically for operation outside of data center environments, Lenovo edge servers can be installed almost anywhere: under a desk, mounted to a wall, or even in a van.

 

With operating temperature ranges from 0-55°C, the servers are rugged and include strong cybersecurity features like disk encryption, as well as physical protections including motion detectors and intrusion switches to guard against unauthorized access and tampering.

 

The rugged, compact design of the Lenovo Edge servers was an ideal match for the NGO, whose missions can take teams to unforgiving environments. As a result, medics deliver emergency aid quickly, effectively, and compassionately.

 

“We chose the Lenovo ThinkSystem SE350 Edge server because it had the technical performance required to run our services, as well as the environmental specifications to handle high temperatures and withstand dust,” says the spokesperson for the international humanitarian organization.

 

Edge computing knows no boundaries

 

Medics in the field aren't the only ones who rely on edge computing. We live in an increasingly data-driven world. People and things generate data outside your data center at the “last mile” of the network. The demand to make mission-critical and time-sensitive decisions at the network edge fuels a growing need to bring powerful compute performance, enabled by Artificial Intelligence (AI), to the edge.

 

Fortunately, this is made possible by the availability of high-performance networking and edge computing hardware. When real-time insights are critical, the latency caused as data travels to data centers or the cloud and then back to the device can be especially problematic as vital moments are wasted. Edge computing saves time, which can save lives.

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With the avalanche of data at the edge, having “data-center like” compute performance and 24/7 availability is critical for delivering real-time data insights.

The applications of edge computing are diverse and fascinating. For example, self-driving cars cannot wait for the round trip of data travel to know when to brake or how fast to travel. The growing need for real-time decision making drives the need for intelligence at the edge and complements less time-sensitive computations in the data center or cloud.

Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions offers purpose-built edge servers that fit anywhere. They are designed to do real-time analytics in environments that are hostile due to temperature, vibration, dust, and even potential tampering. Further, they include a choice of integrated storage and data management for a complete edge computing solution.

Transforming Barcelona into the 5G Smart City of the Future.

 

Behind Barcelona’s old-world facade runs one of the most technologically advanced networks, powering the city’s infrastructure and its citizens’ lives. Learn how Lenovo’s Edge Computing solutions are providing the springboard for Barcelona’s digital transformation. Watch now.

 

Explore the interesting applications of Edge computing through the lens of these Lenovo customer case studies:

CASE STUDIES

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