Branch-office AI: workers that join the farm by being switched on
At a small site without ops staff, scaling should be plugging in a box. A branch-office gateway discovers its workers over mDNS, so a prepared machine joins the farm by being switched on.
A gateway can discover its workers automatically over mDNS on the local network, with no static worker list to maintain [1]. Power on a prepared box, it advertises itself with its fingerprint, the gateway probes it, and within a health-check cycle it is serving. For a site without ops staff, plugging in the new AI box is the entire scaling procedure.
Roaming hardware contributes when present
A workstation that is only sometimes on can contribute when it is present, because discovery adds it while it advertises and drops it when it goes away [1]. Static lists and discovery compose: pin the core boxes statically for a stable base, and let extras join dynamically, with static entries winning on an identity collision.
The setup
Each worker serves the LAN as in the office recipe, which makes it advertise on mDNS automatically, and shares one farm key; the gateway enables discovery and carries that shared key for discovered workers [2]. A newly appeared worker is probed immediately rather than waiting a full cycle, and the gateway excludes an advertisement that is actually itself.
Where it fits, and where it doesn't
This suits branch, retail, and clinic sites with one gateway appliance and whatever capable machines exist, and lab or demo rooms where hardware comes and goes [1]. It is link-local by design, so it is not for cloud or routed networks; there you keep a static worker list. Image the boxes once, ship them, and plug them in.
References
- Software Tailor. "AI Server — product page." softwaretailor.com/ai-server.htm. Accessed 2026-07-22.
- Software Tailor. "AI Server documentation — Quick start." softwaretailor.com/docs/ai-server/quick-start.htm. Accessed 2026-07-22.
- Microsoft. "AI Server on the Microsoft Store." apps.microsoft.com/detail/9P42956WBWCL. Accessed 2026-07-22.
Related articles
Scale a site by plugging in a box.
mDNS discovery makes a branch farm grow when a machine switches on. Get it on Windows from the Microsoft Store, or read the feature tour first.