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HPE opens Geneva IoT innovation lab to capitalise on edge data
Datacentre equipment provider sees an opportunity on the edge to provide data processing for the internet of things
HPE has expanded its internet of things (IoT) expertise by opening an IoT innovation lab in Geneva as part of its bid to expand out of the datacentre.
The Geneva lab is the company’s third such facility. Last year it opened its Asia-Pacific lab in Singapore, and it also has a US lab.
In a transcript of the Citi Global 2019 conference earlier this month, posted on the Seeking Alpha financial blogging site, HPE CFO Tarek Robbiati said: “We see a lot of data not only being generated within the enterprise premises or the campus premises, but also at the edge.”
HPE has estimated that a typical enterprise system of record holds 5-10PB of corporate data, and companies innovating in analytics, such as Walmart in the US, may have about 40PB of data. But this pales in comparison with social media platforms such as Facebook, which generates 10PB a day, said HPE.
Although only 10% of enterprise data is being created and processed at the edge today, HPE estimates that over the next few years, 75% of enterprise data will be processed at the edge.
The company sees an opportunity to provide enterprises with a single converged system to process data at the edge. It regards this as important as organisations change their business models to encompass the IoT.
In a keynote presentation at the opening of the Geneva lab, Phil Davis, president, hybrid IT at HPE, said: “The pace of change in business is unprecedented.”
According to Davis, even traditional locations such as stadiums and shopping centres are looking at new ways to engage with customers.
Read more about HPE
- Tech supplier has beefed up its Edgeline portfolio with new hardware and software offerings to make it easier to manage edge devices, applications and data.
- HPE’s edge computing strategy hinges on converged infrastructure systems to help enterprises manage data outside their datacentres and the cloud, and help the company regain market traction.
“As we talk to customers, we see three clear trends,” he said. “The enterprise of the future is going to the edge, where the digital world meets the real world, and IoT is one of hundreds of opportunities being created at the edge.”
Given that 70-80% of data will be created at the edge, IT will need to become more distributed, said Davis.
HPE’s IoT product line includes the EdgeLine server and Aruba networking for delivering what it claims is secure infrastructure. Tom Bradicich, vice-president and general manager, converged servers, edge and IoT systems, described how the IoT can provide scientific, engineering and business insight.
“You can divide the IoT into connecting, computing and controlling – we do control and actuation in the same box as the computing,” he said.
