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SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Hewlett-Packard Enterprise is moving full speed ahead into the Internet of things market with a new all-purpose enterprise platform that it hopes will put the company on the radar screens of IoT equipment buyers for years to come.
The HPE Universal Internet of Things (IoT) Platform, launched May 10 here at the IoT/AppsWorld Conference at the Convention Center, is designed to be an enterprise’s starting point in the management of IoT functionality of all types. And this is a market that appears to have no ceiling at this time, anyway.
Thus, by using this platform, administrators of IoT functionality will be able to manage all current types of applications, sensors and machine-to-machine devices on a single control screen. A single admin ostensibly will have the ways and means to process, analyze and monetize collected data in a secure cloud platform.
Some observers undoubtedly will call it a Swiss army knife for managing the IoT. We certainly will use no such cliche here at eWEEK.
“This is an IoT enablement platform with a list of six areas of new functionality that we’re adding into,” Nigel Upton, HPE’s Director and General Manager of IoT, told eWEEK.
“Typically, the type of customers we are involved with have already been working in IoT to some level or another. They would have already gone and deployed one, two or three solutions in IoT. Typically, the pain point they’re looking to fix is this: ‘Instead of having multiple IoT platforms, multiple data types and connectivity types, how do I simplify that and have one platform that will allow me to connect to any type of device, but also be able to scale and be able to give me a consistent data model, so that I can then mash up all the date I need?’
“Customers also want the system to be a pay-as-you-go SaaS (software as a service) model. Those are the requirements we have from the larger enterprises, which is where we’re aiming this.”
Gartner Research reported last year that the endpoints of IoT will grow at a 31.7 percent CAGR clip from now through 2020, reaching an installed base of 20.8 billion units. As the IoT market expands and organizations extend their networks to connect a wide range of devices, communications service providers and enterprises require horizontal solutions to connect and manage devices and applications, while meeting the scalability and versatility requirements of IoT operators.
HPE wants the Universal IoT Platform, which Upton said has been in development for three years, to enable future functionality for users while serving as a key tool to build infrastructure that will enable the growth of IoT.
The IoT platform provides support for long-range, low-power connectivity, including cellular, radio, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Key features of the HPE Universal IoT Platform include:
—Multi-connectivity: Communication over different types of underlying networks, to acquire IoT data and maintain it in a consistent data model aligned with the oneM2M standard.
—Device management: Standardized device lifecycle management (oneM2M) across disparate IoT gateways, devices and underlying networks.
—Mashup: Ability to enrich data from the devices with external data sources, so developing contextual data that provides greater insight.
—Developer portal: Sophisticated application development environment for developers and partners.
—Data analytics: Discovers meaningful patterns in data collected from sensors to derive valuable business insights using HPE Vertica and HPE Haven OnDemand.
—Enhance data security: Utilizes key exchanges and Codec libraries to interpret data flows in a secure manner.
“The value of the IoT lies in enriching data collected from devices with analytics and exposing it to applications that enable organizations to derive business value,” Upton said. “This platform integrates diverse devices with different communications protocols, enabling users to see benefits from their IoT data. It is designed to scale to billions of transactions; HPE has tried and tested this in rigorous large-scale global telco and enterprise environments in a variety of smart ecosystems.”
The HPE Universal IoT Platform is designed on the oneM2M industry standard. This standard was launched in 2012 as a global initiative to ensure the most efficient deployment of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications. Its aim is to develop technical specifications for a common M2M Service Layer that can be embedded within various hardware and software to connect the wide range of devices worldwide with M2M application servers.
Availability
The HPE Universal IoT Platform is available worldwide and can be deployed on premises or in a private cloud environment for a full-featured as-a-service model. Go here for more information.