Fast, secure, efficient IoT: why Dell Technologies focuses on the edge

9 April 2019 | 1918 Shares

Dell Technologies

At first glance, the promise of public cloud for IoT is compelling – easy button, minimal upfront investment – but in many use cases, going all-in on public cloud can prove impractical, as numerous organizations are discovering.

A recent Forrester paper, IoT Deployment Is Driving Analytics to The Edge, surveying IT and OT (operational technology) professionals, stated that using centrally-based or cloud compute, storage and analysis isn’t proving fit-for-purpose. The problems stem from mainly the same sources: high data volumes, the costs of data transport, and latency, in that insights arrive too late to be actionable.

According to Forrester:

– 49 percent of those surveyed identified the need to be able to monitor in real-time structured and unstructured data;

– 42 percent were concerned about sending large quantities of data into the cloud or to a central point because of the sensitive nature of the information transmitted and received;

– 76 percent of firms surveyed stated that identifying “the ideal location” for data analysis was challenging forward progress.

These challenges aren’t confined to a single vertical or industry. Respondents from manufacturing, retail, utilities, natural resource discovery, extraction and processing, transport and government all report similar experiences with public cloud, such as slow response times and high costs, and that these obstacles stand in the way of IoT success.

Solutions to this situation are beginning to appear, with a prime example being IoT edge computing solutions from Dell Technologies. For example, the capabilities of Dell Technologies’ enterprise -grade video safety and security platform allow for real-time image recognition, as well as efficient storage for massive 4K data sets, which public cloud-only solutions can’t match. After all, sending ultra-HD image streams to the cloud is not, typically, a good use of bandwidth, nor does it enable real-time, actionable insights.

As an industry forerunner with a globally respected brand, Dell Technologies is uniquely positioned to provide the type of edge compute and storage that’s optimized for IoT deployments. The company offers a broad, end-to-end product portfolio built on open standards, powerful management software for up to millions of “things”, unrivaled experience in turning data into value, and IT and OT (via partners) expertise.

IoT Solution, Safety and Security

Already, Dell Technologies Engineered Solution for Safety and Security is enabling real time image analysis, without the types of long latencies and data transport costs that those using the cloud to analyze IoT data are finding. The approach of placing storage and compute in edge deployments is winning over an increasing number of IoT users, with 29 percent of those surveyed already deploying in this way, and a further 22 percent likely to follow in the next 12 months, according to Forrester.

In the Forrester report, IoT-enabled security & safety is the leading use case for IoT and IIoT (78 percent), followed logistics (track and trace), energy management and predictive maintenance, where powerful algorithms can predict faults and therefore improve maintenance schedules keep production on-schedule. In all these cases, IoT’s potential is significantly extended by swift analysis of (and action on, if necessary) each device’s telemetry. That creates a maximum ROI on IoT, with edge-based compute & storage enabling the required analysis engines and infrastructure that drive the best results.

Dell Technologies is driving change and opening up the myriad possibilities of IoT, by focusing the power of technology close to the data source. The full potential of IoT is only just becoming apparent, so why not work with Dell Technologies and see how fast and efficient edge-based IoT deployments can be realized by deploying resources close to IoT data sources?  To learn more, visit www.delltechnologies.com/iot and get in touch with a representative today.