---
title: "Technologies: Software | Nexus Observatory"
description: "Technologies of the Software platform, layer by layer: Compute and edge, Data and software and interoperability. An edge runtime and node agent that enrol…"
url: https://observatory.global/software/technologies/
publisher: Nexus Observatory Inc.
updated: 2026-11-02
---

[Nexus Observatory](https://observatory.global/)

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[Software](https://observatory.global/software/)

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**Technologies** 

# The technologies behind software.

Every technology this platform builds with, layer by layer, from the open taxonomy. Marked in red: what is moving now, each traced to its source.

[Plan with us](https://observatory.global/software/contact/deployment/)

[Architecture](https://observatory.global/software/architecture/)

Areas · **6** Technologies · **124** Industries · **3** 

**01** The layered map

## Layer by layer, from the open taxonomy.

Each domain this platform draws on, with its layers and the technologies in each. Open a layer for what each technology does and the standard behind it.

### Compute and edge

Compute placed where data is produced and decisions are needed: the device, far, near and regional edge tiers, multi-access edge computing, modular edge data centres including the AI tower in a box, servers and accelerators, storage, power and cooling, ruggedisation, fleet orchestration, OTA and GitOps, and the hardware trust that makes remote sites safe to run.

[The full directory →](https://observatory.global/technologies/edge/)

### [Edge tiers and multi-access edge computing](https://observatory.global/technologies/edge/edge-tiers-and-multi-access-edge-computing/)

Technologies · 9 · Frontier · 1

- Device edge
- Far edge
- Near edge
- Regional edge
- MEC application enablement
- MEC service APIs
- Application mobility and edge federation
- Edge-cloud continuum
- Data residency and jurisdiction controls

### [Modular edge data centres and the AI tower in a box](https://observatory.global/technologies/edge/modular-edge-data-centres-and-the-ai-tower-in-a-box/)

Technologies · 8

- AI tower in a box
- Prefabricated and containerised modules
- Telecom and IT power systems
- Renewable and hybrid microgrids
- Physical security
- Fire detection and suppression
- Northern and permafrost site design
- Commissioning and site acceptance

### [Servers and accelerators](https://observatory.global/technologies/edge/servers-and-accelerators/)

Technologies · 8 · Frontier · 1

- Short-depth and ruggedised edge servers
- GPUs
- NPUs and inference accelerators
- FPGAs
- DPUs and SmartNICs
- Memory and interconnect
- Chiplets and die-to-die interconnect
- Out-of-band management

### [Storage and edge data management](https://observatory.global/technologies/edge/storage-and-edge-data-management/)

Technologies · 6

- NVMe and NVMe over Fabrics
- Object and file storage at the edge
- Storage security and media sanitisation
- Buffering for intermittent links
- Time-series and geospatial data stores
- Replication, backup and retention

### [Cooling and ruggedisation](https://observatory.global/technologies/edge/cooling-and-ruggedisation/)

Technologies · 10 · Frontier · 1

- Air cooling and containment
- Direct-to-chip liquid cooling
- Single-phase immersion cooling
- Two-phase immersion cooling
- Free cooling and heat reuse
- Ingress protection and enclosures
- Environmental testing
- Hazardous locations
- Substation, rail and industrial environments
- Electrical safety of equipment

### [Kubernetes and fleet orchestration](https://observatory.global/technologies/edge/kubernetes-and-fleet-orchestration/)

Technologies · 8

- Kubernetes at the edge
- Fleet and multi-cluster management
- Bare-metal and zero-touch provisioning
- Network function orchestration
- Accelerator scheduling and sharing
- Observability
- Disconnected and intermittent operation
- Container security and multi-tenancy

### [OTA updates, GitOps and software supply chain](https://observatory.global/technologies/edge/ota-updates-gitops-and-software-supply-chain/)

Technologies · 8

- GitOps
- Secure update frameworks
- Device management
- Firmware resiliency and recovery
- Software bills of materials
- Build provenance
- Secure development for industrial components
- Staged rollout and rollback

### [Confidential computing and hardware trust](https://observatory.global/technologies/edge/confidential-computing-and-hardware-trust/)

Technologies · 8 · Frontier · 2

- Trusted execution environments
- Remote attestation
- Device identity and roots of trust
- Secure and measured boot
- Key management and hardware security modules
- Confidential AI on accelerators
- Zero trust at the edge
- Post-quantum readiness for edge fleets

### Data, software and interoperability

How observations move from the edge into stores, catalogues and APIs with their provenance, licence and residency attached, and how they interoperate through open standards and the open Observatory Protocol.

[The full directory →](https://observatory.global/technologies/data/)

### [Ingest and streaming](https://observatory.global/technologies/data/ingest-and-streaming/)

Technologies · 8

- Publish-subscribe telemetry
- Message queuing between services
- Event envelopes
- Event-driven API descriptions
- Meteorological data exchange
- Schemas and data contracts
- Timestamps and time zones
- Edge filtering and store-and-forward

### [Storage and data lakes](https://observatory.global/technologies/data/storage-and-data-lakes/)

Technologies · 6

- Time-series stores
- Columnar data lakes
- Array stores for cubes and models
- Spatial databases
- Tiered storage and retention
- Long-term preservation

### [Metadata, provenance and catalogues](https://observatory.global/technologies/data/metadata-provenance-and-catalogues/)

Technologies · 8 · Frontier · 1

- Provenance
- Lineage in geographic metadata
- Dataset catalogues
- Asset catalogues
- WMO discovery metadata
- Persistent identifiers and citation
- Controlled vocabularies and units
- Content credentials for media

### [Open standards and interoperability](https://observatory.global/technologies/data/open-standards-and-interoperability/)

Technologies · 7

- OGC SensorThings API
- OGC API - Connected Systems
- Observation models and ontologies
- OPC UA information models
- Context information management
- Asset administration shell
- Hydro and met data encodings

### [APIs and SDKs](https://observatory.global/technologies/data/apis-and-sdks/)

Technologies · 7

- API descriptions
- OGC API building blocks
- Authorisation
- Error reporting
- Quotas, metering and usage records
- SDKs and client libraries
- Webhooks and subscriptions

### [Licensing, residency and governance](https://observatory.global/technologies/data/licensing-residency-and-governance/)

Technologies · 8 · Frontier · 1

- Open data licences
- Data and code licence identifiers
- FAIR data practice
- Indigenous data governance
- Data residency by contract
- Cross-border transfer rules
- Data sharing agreements
- Data spaces

### [Digital twins and observability](https://observatory.global/technologies/data/digital-twins-and-observability/)

Technologies · 7

- Digital twin concepts
- Twin frameworks for equipment and sites
- Telemetry for software
- Metrics exposition
- Network and device management interfaces
- Data quality monitoring
- Service level objectives

### [Open protocol interfaces and federation](https://observatory.global/technologies/data/open-protocol-interfaces-and-federation/)

Technologies · 8 · Frontier · 2

- Node roles and profiles
- Enrolment and admission state machines
- Observation envelope
- Signed orchestration plans
- Conformance testing
- Grid federation
- Federated learning across grids
- Privacy-preserving analytics

**02** Across the network

## The whole spectrum, on the main site.

[Main site Every technology domainAll domains, layers and items, with their sources.Open →](https://observatory.global/technologies/)

[Main site The spectrumThe technologies of observation on one map.Open →](https://observatory.global/spectrum/)

[Observatory Protocol StandardsThe open standards the protocol is composed from.Open →](https://observatory.global/protocol/standards/)

**03** On this site

## Where to go next.

[Software AreasEvery area, with its systems and standards.Open →](https://observatory.global/software/areas/)

[Software ArchitectureLayers, functions and evidence.Open →](https://observatory.global/software/architecture/)

[Software IndustriesThe industry sites built on this platform.Open →](https://observatory.global/software/industries/)

[Software ResourcesExplainer, stories, specification and forms.Open →](https://observatory.global/software/resources/)

## Bring us the site.

We bring the survey, the design and the crew. The form names who receives your details.

[Plan a deployment](https://observatory.global/software/contact/deployment/)

[Contact](https://observatory.global/software/contact/)

[Nexus Observatory](https://observatory.global/)**Software** . One runtime. Every node. Every state.[Talk to us](https://observatory.global/contact/)

Software

- [Overview](https://observatory.global/software/)
- [Explainer](https://observatory.global/software/explainer/)
- [Areas](https://observatory.global/software/areas/)
- [Technologies](https://observatory.global/software/technologies/)
- [Architecture](https://observatory.global/software/architecture/)
- [Industries](https://observatory.global/software/industries/)
- [Resources](https://observatory.global/software/resources/)
- [Contact](https://observatory.global/software/contact/)

Platforms

- [Observatory Protocol](https://observatory.global/protocol/)
- [Protocol & Grid](https://observatory.global/grid-services/)
- [Software](https://observatory.global/software/)
- [Hardware & power](https://observatory.global/hardware/)
- [Sensors & instruments](https://observatory.global/sensors/)
- [Connectivity](https://observatory.global/connectivity/)
- [Edge compute & AI](https://observatory.global/edge-ai/)
- [Earth observation & GeoAI](https://observatory.global/earth-observation/)
- [Space and satellite systems](https://observatory.global/space/)
- [Digital twins and simulation](https://observatory.global/digital-twins/)
- [Data & licensing](https://observatory.global/data-products/)
- [Field services](https://observatory.global/field-services/)
- [Frontier labs](https://observatory.global/labs/)

Solutions

- [Early warning](https://observatory.global/use-cases/street-flood/)
- [Wildfire and fire weather](https://observatory.global/use-cases/wildfire-camera/)
- [Environmental compliance](https://observatory.global/use-cases/methane-fenceline/)
- [Asset monitoring](https://observatory.global/industries/infrastructure/)
- [Private networks](https://observatory.global/connectivity/private-5g/)
- [Remote power and sites](https://observatory.global/use-cases/remote-microgrid/)
- [Climate and resilience](https://observatory.global/industries/climate/)
- [Site twins](https://observatory.global/digital-twins/)
- [Data licensing](https://observatory.global/data-products/)

Industries

- [Public safety](https://observatory.global/industries/public-safety/)
- [Government](https://observatory.global/industries/government/)
- [Cities](https://observatory.global/industries/cities/)
- [Civil resilience](https://observatory.global/industries/resilience/)
- [Communities](https://observatory.global/industries/communities/)
- [Humanitarian](https://observatory.global/industries/humanitarian/)
- [Climate](https://observatory.global/industries/climate/)
- [Water](https://observatory.global/industries/water/)
- [Nature](https://observatory.global/industries/nature/)
- [Oceans](https://observatory.global/industries/oceans/)
- [Agriculture](https://observatory.global/industries/agriculture/)
- [Energy](https://observatory.global/industries/energy/)
- [Telecom](https://observatory.global/industries/telecom/)
- [Transport](https://observatory.global/industries/transport/)
- [Infrastructure](https://observatory.global/industries/infrastructure/)
- [Mining](https://observatory.global/industries/mining/)
- [Industry](https://observatory.global/industries/industry/)
- [Research](https://observatory.global/industries/research/)
- [Education](https://observatory.global/industries/education/)
- [Health](https://observatory.global/industries/health/)
- [Insurance and finance](https://observatory.global/industries/insurance/)
- [Events](https://observatory.global/industries/events/)

Products

- [Field Deployment Studio](https://observatory.global/studio/)
- [Station Builder](https://observatory.global/studio/builder/)
- [Field services](https://observatory.global/field-services/)
- [Data products](https://observatory.global/data-products/)
- [APIs and SDKs](https://observatory.global/protocol/developers/)
- [Edge runtime and fleet](https://observatory.global/software/)
- [Hardware catalogue](https://observatory.global/hardware/)
- [Reference designs](https://observatory.global/protocol/reference-designs/)

Resources

- [Learn](https://observatory.global/learn/)
- [Stories](https://observatory.global/stories/)
- [Environments](https://observatory.global/environments/)
- [Network scenes](https://observatory.global/environments/networks/)
- [Observatories atlas](https://observatory.global/observatories/)
- [Earth and maps](https://observatory.global/earth/)
- [Technologies](https://observatory.global/technologies/)
- [Countries](https://observatory.global/countries/)
- [Spectrum](https://observatory.global/spectrum/)
- [Specification](https://observatory.global/protocol/specification/)
- [Conformance](https://observatory.global/protocol/conformance/)
- [Open source](https://observatory.global/open/)
- [Data credits](https://observatory.global/credits/)

Company

- [About](https://observatory.global/about/)
- [Open governance](https://observatory.global/consortium/)
- [Security and trust](https://observatory.global/security/)
- [Contact sales](https://observatory.global/contact/)
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