Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has unveiled – at its Discover partner and customer event in the UK – its foray into the edge computing sector of the IoT market with the launch of its first edge computing platforms for IoT, the Edgeline System 10 and System 20. The products are the fruits of a partnership with Intel and are based on Intel i5 chips and come with the option of Intel’s Wind River intelligent gateway software.
The new devices been certified to work with Microsoft’s recently released Azure IoT suite. They are designed to enable organisations setting up IoT networks to collect, process and analyse loT data at the edge of the network, and are available in ruggedised, mobile and rack-mounted versions. HPE says they are suitable for a wide spectrum of applications: logistics, transportation, healthcare, government and retail. The Wind River versions have Aruba WiFi built in, and all versions come with a number of ports for the addition of connectivity options.
The EL10 is an entry level device, the EL20 has higher compute capabilities and is designed for applications requiring high volume processing. It is also built with higher grade components for longevity. Future products in the Edgeline series will incorporate HPE’s Moonshot technology, billed as and “energy-efficient, integrated server system” that can be optimised for specific workloads.
Antonio Neri, executive vice president and general manager of the Enterprise Group at HPE said HPE played in every part of the IoT value chain and planned to develop solutions specific to different vertical markets. “We believe HPE is very well placed to provide solutions for IoT and you are going to see in the next 12-36 months new verticalised solutions using our partnership with Intel our computer platforms and our software for data analytics,” he told apress briefing at Discover.
While Intel, HP and others are promoting the idea of edge computing, Cisco has been using the term fog computing and earlier this month announced, in conjunction with Princeton University, the formation of the Open Fog Consortium with Intel, Microsoft, Dell and ARM to achieve standardisation for edge computing in IoT.
Neri declined to comment on this, but said HP had always been a promoter of open standards, and had partnered with Intel to provide reliable ruggedised solutions for IoT.
