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      2. Getting Started!

      Connecting your lab to the Artificial Cloud

      In order to connect the Artificial Cloud to the hardware and software in your lab, you will need an IPC installed in your lab’s network environment. The IPC is a computer (either a physical PC or a VM) that runs the code that is responsible for bridging communication between Artificial and the systems in your lab.

      VM-Based IPC (Recommended Approach)

      A bootable ISO will be provided to install our immutable Linux distribution onto a virtual disk attached to the VM you provide.

      These are the requirements for the VM:

      • Attached disk >100Gb

      • TPM 2.0 support

      • Customer-provided DHCP server configured to provide a static IP to the VM. (VM will be configured to use DHCP, but the assigned IP Address MUST NOT change.)

      • 16Gb RAM

      • SMBIOS should return unique values for SerialNumber or MachineUUID to identify multiple VMs

      • UEFI-capable virtual machine

      • Access to the instrument/workcell PC

      Once a VM that meets those requirements has been created, you will attach the bootable ISO and allow it to proceed through the install process.

      Hard IPC 

      If the Soft IPC isn’t an option, we can provide a Hard IPC solution instead. This will be a physical device that we will pre-configure and ship to you to be installed in your lab. The device will be connected to your network and will be used to communicate with the Artificial Cloud.

      If you are interested in the Hard IPC solution, please contact your Artificial Customer Support representative for more information.

      Firewall Requirements

      Regardless of the approach (soft vs hard IPC), your IT team will need to enable the following firewalls for connectivity: 

      • Outbound HTTPS to artificial.com 

      • Outbound access to *.ghcr.io, *.githubusercontent.com, and docker.io for container registry access

      • Outbound access to *.notartificial.xyz for Device Configuration Management, Log Aggregation and Health Monitoring

      • Outbound HTTPS to required local hardware or software (e.g. FluentControl, Venus, Cellario) (if relevant)

      • Outbound HTTPS to required cloud software (e.g. Benchling, AWS S3, Azure Blob Storage) (if relevant)