Consideration of the application deployment

How do you deploy new or updated AI models / applications?

As posted in our article, How does Silex support developers to setup the development environment?, our Dockerfile supports developers to build firmware development and AI and multimedia applications. But, how do you deploy them to your devices?

There could be a few ways to deploy the applications to edge devices.

• Deploy only applications and AI models.
• Build firmware integrating newly developed or updated applications.
• Update them OTA (either over LAN, cloud, peer-to-peer like BLE or through physical media like an USB thumb drive.)

In either way, there are several things to plan ahead of the product installation.

1. Device version management

When you consider allowing to upload only applications or AI models, the version of SNPE or QNN on the device must be checked because the AI models generated by Qualcomm AI runtime SDK on a host computer or Qualcomm AI Hub do not work on the device if the version of these on the device is older than the one on the Qualcomm AI runtime SDK.

• Implement a mechanism to check the compatibility of the AI/ML applications to be updated.
• Implement a mechanism to reject the incompatible applications or AI models, or update the Qualcomm AI runtime on the device when uploading the applications or AI models.

2. OTA update

You will need to make sure that you have a reliable network connection and robust implementation in case of the firmware update fails If you decide to update firmware or applications over the air. Qualcomm Linux based firmware size can be more than 10G bytes. If you have a case where multiple devices are updated at the same time, updating firmware to multiple devices can stress the entire network.

When you don't have the cloud connectivity, you may want to have a on-premise device management software to check the device firmware version, schedule OTA, device access authentication and so forth.

• Implement the robust and high bandwidth network interface to upload firmware in a meaningful time.
• Implement a way to schedule firmware upload in proper time slot.
• Encrypted secure network connection to upload data to the device.

3. Security

Obviously, the consideration for the device security is important for the file upload by any means.

• Implement a mechanism to authorize device access before attempting to upload anything on the device.
• Implement a mechanism to check the authenticity of firmware or applications to be uploaded before loading them on the device.
• Implement a mechanism to check the integrity of firmware or applications before running them.

The details of the Qualcomm Linux security features are available on Qualcomm's site.

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Silex is here to support you to consider these and implement as per your needs. Consult your needs with us.

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