Deployable edge data center for remote-sensing Alaska.

1Executive summary

Alaska DOT&PF's stated outcome is to compress the path from drone landing to usable terrain model from 28 hours to minutes, and to do it across the harshest operating environment in the United States.

We propose AuroraEdge AK-20, a purpose-built 20-foot edge data center engineered around three simple truths the current market is quietly overlooking:

1. Fairbanks does not need tropical-grade refrigeration. It has roughly 61 cooling-degree-days per year, so free-air cooling can carry the load ~90% of operating hours. The current market price for a rugged containerized DC embeds DX-heavy cooling designed for the Gulf. We remove that cost.
2. A new one-trip insulated ISO reefer arrives from the factory already rated for -40 °F, with corten steel, stainless interior, and 3-inch closed-cell foam. We use that as the enclosure rather than custom-engineering ruggedization. This alone eliminates roughly $75K to $400K of enclosure cost seen in comparable premium bids.
3. The photogrammetry workload does not require hyperscaler-grade GPUs. Public Pix4D, Agisoft, and ESRI benchmarks show drone imagery processing at L4 and L40S-class GPUs runs comfortably; we spec 2 × Dell R760xa with 4 × L40S each (8 L40S total) plus 2 × L4 on a rugged ingest node, which is the right envelope for Alaska DOT&PF's seasonal cadence with generous headroom.

The result is a transparent, source-backed, channel-ready bid that delivers the same "minutes to intelligence" outcome Alaska DOT&PF is already achieving, with a dramatically lower total cost of ownership and without vendor marketplace lock-in.

2Scope of supply

• One (1) AuroraEdge AK-20 modular edge data center, factory-integrated, tested, and delivered to Fairbanks.
• Compute, storage, networking, power, cooling, fire suppression, and physical security installed and burned in prior to shipment.
• Redundant connectivity architecture: primary customer-provided fiber, two (2) Starlink Performance fixed-site kits for diverse backup.
• Software stack based on Kubernetes with Rancher, TrueNAS Enterprise, NetBox, Prometheus, Grafana, and FRRouting. Operationally equivalent to Armada Edge Platform features Alaska DOT&PF uses today.
• Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) with a designated customer witness.
• Ocean freight via Matson or TOTE to Anchorage, flatbed to Fairbanks, rigging and setting on a customer-prepared pad.
• Two-engineer on-site commissioning team for five days.
• Two-day on-site training plus written runbooks.
• Year 1 premium support bundle.

3Technical highlights

4Architecture

Wire-level topology. See §5 for the dimensioned 3D layout of the enclosure and interior equipment.

53D product viewer

6Pricing

All prices USD. Single-unit quantity. Firm-fixed purchase. Taxes, duties, and customer-site civil works excluded.

6.1 Base configuration — firm-fixed purchase

6.2 Year 1 support and services — bundled, payable at delivery

6.3 Year 2+ renewal — flat, firm, at customer option

6.4 Five-year total cost of ownership

Years 2 through 5 are at customer option; the hardware remains owned by Alaska DOT&PF whether or not support is renewed.

6.5 Optional premium mission-critical purchase

For a two-site active-active configuration (Fairbanks + Anchorage DR) with expanded storage, doubled GPU capacity, 1-hour 24×7 P1 response, and a 5-year gold SLA, a firm-fixed purchase quote is available on request. Indicative one-time price $1,149,000 plus $92,000/yr optional support renewal.

7Side-by-side TCO comparison

Armada's publicly reported Commander Edge bundle starts at approximately $450,000/yr for a single entry-level subscription deployment and is typically higher for a loaded Cruiser configuration similar to Alaska DOT&PF's current Fairbanks unit. AuroraEdge AK-20 is a one-time purchase: Alaska DOT&PF owns the hardware outright, with optional annual support renewal.

8Full bill of materials

Every line item tied to a public price anchor where available. Confidence ratings reflect the quality of the public source, not the final negotiated price.

9Schedule

10Service level agreement (Year 1 standard)

Includes 1 annual preventive maintenance site visit, remote patch and update cadence, and parts replacement under NBD next-flight logistics for in-state assets.

11Warranty and support

• 3-year hardware warranty on Dell compute and storage via Dell ProSupport Plus, included.
• 3-year hardware warranty on Arista switches via manufacturer program, included.
• TrueNAS H20 3-year Gold support, included in Year 1 bundle, renewable.
• FortiGate FortiCare support, included in Year 1 bundle, renewable.
• Shell, power, cooling, and fire suppression: 3-year limited warranty on integration workmanship.

12Assumptions and exclusions

• Customer provides a prepared, level pad of 6.5 m × 3 m minimum, with 200 A 3-phase 480 V utility drop within 15 m and grounded to code.
• Customer provides WAN interconnect (fiber) at the demarcation panel.
• Site pad, civil works, permitting, and utility coordination are customer scope.
• Air freight, expedited fees, and customer change orders are not included.
• State of Alaska procurement preferences and small-business participation can be accommodated on request.

13Contract vehicles

This bid can be issued as:

• Direct firm-fixed purchase order to AuroraEdge LLC.
• Through a GSA, SEWP, or NASPO ValuePoint reseller of the customer's choice. Resellers will require a modest pass-through fee.
• Through the State of Alaska's existing IT services cooperative procurement vehicles.

14Why this bid

• Transparent, source-backed pricing. Every line item in the BOM is tied to a public price anchor. No marketplace opacity.
• Right-sized for Alaska. Free-air cooling, arctic-grade enclosure from a commodity reefer supplier, and GPU density matched to the published drone workflow.
• Open, portable software. If Alaska DOT&PF's strategy changes, the stack moves with them. No dependency on a single vendor's control plane.
• Faster or equal time to deliver. 16–20 weeks ARO matches best-in-class containerized DC timelines.
• Lower TCO. Even on the entry-level Armada comparison, 5-year savings exceed $1.2M per unit. On a loaded comparison, savings exceed $2M.
• Documented 3D design. Inspect exact dimensions, equipment footprints, and cold-aisle clearance before award via the included interactive 3D viewer (§5).

15Point of contact

Prepared using public-source-verified pricing and published Alaska DOT&PF workflow data as a public concept exercise.