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Hewlett Packard Enterprise is working with Intel to develop products that will be able to collect, store and analyze the massive amounts of data being generated by the growing numbers of devices and systems that make up the Internet of things.
The partnership will include HPE’s array of Internet of things (IoT) capabilities and Intel’s IoT Platform, which includes not only the chip maker’s silicon products but also software and services designed to help organizations build IoT infrastructures and gather intelligence from the data created by the IoT devices.
According to the vendors, they will jointly develop gateways and other systems that sit at the edge of the network—closer to where the IoT devices and sensors are located—that can collect and analyze the data. Bringing compute, processing and analytics out to the edge is a key push by tech vendors because it reduces the amount of unusable data that has to be sent back over already crowded networks to data centers and cloud environments.
Other vendors—including IBM, Cisco Systems, EMC, VMware and Extreme Networks—are pushing more intelligence and capabilities out to the edge in what Cisco Systems officials call “fog computing” and what others call “edge computing.” Either way, the gist is the same: Do as much processing and analyzing at the edge as possible, closer to the devices, to keep control of network traffic and to produce the fastest results possible.
While the IoT devices get a lot of attention, it’s the data that’s generated by them that holds the most value for companies. The more intelligence they can glean from the data, the faster and better business decisions they can make. However, it’s not an easy thing to do.
“Achieving business outcomes from IoT can be daunting for organizations today due to the complexity of integrating many heterogeneous systems and technologies across devices, edge, network and data centers,” Alain Andreoli, senior vice president and general manager of enterprise servers at HPE, said in a statement. “With Intel, we will deliver new IoT solutions for data analytics and control at the edge of the network, empowering customers to quickly make informed decisions and drive business outcomes.”
The new products from HPE and Intel will sit at the network’s edge, be based on industry standards and will leverage Intel’s Core i5 and low-power Atom processors, according to the vendors. HPE officials will provide more information about their IoT strategy at the upcoming HP Discover show Dec. 1-3 in London.
The companies also will jointly operate three global IoT Discovery Labs that organizations can use to test IoT applications and devices. The centers will be located in Houston, Texas; Grenoble, France; and Singapore. At the same time, HPE will offer new reference architectures that customers can use as templates for their products and software. The joint work and discovery labs will enable greater integration among products and accelerate their development and deployment, according to Doug Davis, senior vice president of Intel’s IoT Group.
Like many other tech players, both HPE and Intel are pushing aggressively into the Internet of things. Estimates on numbers vary, but tech vendors and analyst firms predict rapid growth in the space over the next several years. Cisco officials predict the number of connected things worldwide will jump from 25 billion in 2014 to more than 50 billion in 2020. IDC analysts expect IoT revenues will hit $1.7 trillion by that year.
Intel introduced its IoT Platform a year ago, and is working a growing number of partners—such as Fujitsu—that are using it. The chip maker also is expanding the portfolio, most recently growing the number of reference architectures, adding small, low-power Quark chips, bolstering the operating systems that can run on it and expanding its analytics capabilities.
HPE officials noted that, along with their own IoT solutions, the company also is participating in a range of industry consortiums and standards groups, including the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIS) and the IP for Smart Objects (IPSO) alliance.