Bot.auto, an autonomous vehicle company came to us looking for a data center that could accommodate a number of very complex needs. The dynamic startup was newly establishing its presence in Houston, and had recently rented a warehouse space, from which it planned to test its autonomous vehicles.
The problem: A complex project with a set budget
This client did not have a huge amount of experience with data centers when we first started working with them. So, our team spent time helping them think through their space and power needs first and foremost. This is relatively common, and it’s something our team is always happy to help with at the start of new partnerships.
The client had chosen to rent a warehouse space with an office, where it planned to test its vehicles and grow its business. The initial plan was to use dark fiber to connect the site and data center, but this was soon foiled when it became clear that there were no carriers to the site that the client had chosen.
Undeterred, our team worked around the issue using the 14 carriers in our facility. Doing so allowed us to find connectivity that would work for the vehicle company, using the site they had selected.
The solution: An exciting and fully flexible deployment
The company had a whole host of custom needs from a connectivity perspective, and worked with our team to find bespoke solutions that would accommodate their specific requirements. The client chose to take advantage of Megaport to upload data to the cloud in AWS instances.
Throughout this project we were very sensitive to cost, bearing in mind that the client was a startup and didn’t yet have a presence in the area. Costs were carefully managed from network, transport and cloud perspectives.
The team made full use of the flexibility of the service that we offer here at TRG. The company soon began to make use of its fleet of autonomous vehicles, which were driven to TRG at regular intervals to deliver hard drives of their data. Once dropped off, the hard drives were put into racks and turned on at set intervals, so that relevant data could be ingested and used for training and inferencing.
The end result: Applications of the future learning in real time at TRG
We found it hugely exciting to see the training of these incredible applications happening in real time. While this project was complex and required our team to think outside of the box on many occasions, it was brilliantly fun to be a part of.
The vehicle company in question has since started to see TRG as an extension of its own team, thanks to the fully managed service that we offer. We continue to take care of simple troubleshooting for the client, and are always on hand to assist with their latest ideas and innovations for the future.
