HPE Announces New Intelligent Innovations at the Edge

HPE DISCOVER — Acknowledging that HPE introduced more innovation at this year’s Discover event than any other, the vendor on Tuesday announced new IoT and edge products and programs that reflect the company’s Intelligent Edge strategy.

HPE introduced enhancements to Aruba Central; integrations and new turnkey edge-to-cloud solutions, and the Intelligent Edge and IoT Center of Excellence and Labs.

“Increasingly, your business outcomes will depend on the experiences you deliver at the edge,” Antonio Neri, CEO at HPE told attendees at Tuesday’s HPE Discover keynote. “You will need the simplest connected experience that’s also secure. That’s why we’re investing in transformative technologies to deliver at the intelligent edge.”

Here’s more information on today’s announcements:

Neri called the edge the natural next step extension of the cloud experience.

“And, more enterprises are understanding how critical that intelligent edge is to their future because of the experiences being created,” he said.

HPE defines the intelligent edge as needing to be connected, distributed, secure and autonomous.

Keerti Melkote, founder and president of Aruba, talked about the edge as emerging as the new center of the digital universe.

“We’ve taken a mobile first, cloud-native and IoT-driven approach to innovation at the edge,” he said.

The heart of the company’s edge strategy is Aruba Central, a cloud-based, unified network and assurance platform with AI-powered analytics. Advancements in Aruba Central include:

Aruba solutions are available as GreenLake for Aruba.

HPE is launching four turnkey, edge-to-cloud solutions that enable real-time intelligence at the industrial edge in collaboration with industry partners.

One is the integration of ABB Ability Smart Sensor technology with Aruba access points is designed to deliver a scalable, high-performance wireless connectivity solution for operational technology (OT) equipment such as motors, mounted bearings and pumps. This allows industrial companies to capture valuable data and insights from their equipment to proactively monitor their condition and performance, and plan maintenance in advance to avoid …

… costly and disruptive downtime.

Next is the Secure Edge Data Center for Microsoft Azure Stack. Jointly developed by ABB, HPE, Microsoft and Rittal, it’s an enterprise-grade edge appliance for Microsoft Azure Stack, enabling real-time intelligence and action in harsh industrial environments, while providing seamless integration with Microsoft Azure. The appliance provides IP55-rated environmental protection, cooling, redundant power supply and distribution and automated management, allowing customers to run preconfigured, high-end enterprise applications in locations such as factories or oil rigs.

HPE Edgeline IoT Quick Connect simplifies the convergence of OT and IT, enabling customers to monitor and control OT equipment such as machines or motors in real time. Jointly delivered with Microsoft, HPE Edgeline IoT Quick Connect is based on the HPE Edgeline OT Link Platform, which connects OT devices, the HPE Edgeline EL300 Converged Edge System and Microsoft Azure IoT, a collection of cloud services to connect, monitor and control IoT assets.

And Fast Start Condition Monitoring enables customers set up condition monitoring within 90 days to deliver performance and availability of their OT equipment. An end-to-end solution implemented by HPE Pointnext Services, Fast Start Condition Monitoring is designed for customers who want to get started quickly with condition monitoring but lack the skills to do so. HPE Pointnext Services help define use cases OT data sources and workflows, and implement pilots for proof of value, based on HPE Edgeline Converged Edge Systems, the HPE Edgeline OT Link Platform and PTC’s ThingWorx Industrial IoT platform.

HPE put together two new organizations — the HPE Edge and IoT Lab, and the Edge and IoT Center of Excellence.

The HPE Edge and IoT Lab will be part of HPE Labs. The lab’s mission is rapid commercialization, technology and solutions development, focusing on three areas: connect, compute and control.

The intelligent edge technologies will simplify edge-to-cloud management and OT-IT convergence and enable new use cases — this includes a unified provisioning, policy and security management across wired networks, Wi-Fi and 5G; the next generation of HPE’s HPE Edgeline Converged Edge Systems and HPE Edgeline OT Link Platform; and real-time video analytics for quality, security and customer experience applications.

Tom Bradicich, vice president and HPE fellow, global head, edge and IoT CoE and Labs, said that the Edge and IoT Center of Excellence will help HPE organizations and partners develop their edge and IoT businesses. The Edge and IoT CoE will provide technical and business expertise to internal HPE Financial Services, alliances, M&A/venture, OEM, business units and HPE partners.

The Channel-to-Edge (CEI) partner program is designed to help channel partners enable the expertise to effectively recommend, sell, implement and manage HPE offerings along with their Edge/IoT solutions. The CEI will do this via use cases, business cases and brief cases.