Using Development kit in production

Autonomous Machines Jetson & Embedded Systems Jetson Nano
1

What are the security and other issues with using a nano (or NX) development kit in medium volume production environments?

We’re developing a security appliance using the nano for A.I. inference on-prem with our customers.
We want to do a run of about 500 sales with the developer kit due to the current budget (already sold ~120).

I know the sdcard can’t be fully encrypted so our IP is at risk with physical access to the module, but the boss thinks that’s a low risk of happening because “we know our customers”.

We run all our software in docker containers and all units are deployed via Azure IoT hub.

2

The less obvious issue is that dev kit warranties are not transferrable, while production modules can have the warranty passed forward.

Also, the dev kit carrier board cannot be purchased separately, and if there is any problem with this, then you need to buy an entire new kit for a replacement.

Normally commercial modules are sold and supported longer than the dev kits. At some future date when end of life is announced the production modules will still be available, while the dev kit will disappear.