by Gary Mintchell | Mar 20, 2018 | Automation, Data Management, Internet of Things, Operations Management
Much of the interesting activity in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) space lately happens at the edge of the network. IT companies such as Dell Technologies and Hewlett Packard Enterprise have built upon their core technologies to develop powerful edge computing devices. Recently Bedrock Automation and Opto 22 on the OT side have also built interesting edge devices.
I’ve long maintained that all this technology—from intelligent sensing to cloud databases—means little without ways to make sense of the data. One company I rarely hear from is FogHorn Systems. This developer of edge intelligence software has recently been quite active on the partnership front. One announcement regards Wind River and the other Google.
FogHorn and Wind River (an Intel company) have teamed to integrate FogHorn’s Lightning edge analytics and machine learning platform with Wind River’s software, including Wind River Helix Device Cloud, Wind River Titanium Control, and Wind River Linux. This offering is said to accelerate harnessing the power of IIoT data. Specifically, FogHorn enables organizations to place data analytics and machine learning as close to the data source as possible; Wind River provides the technology to support manageability of edge devices across their lifecycle, virtualization for workload consolidation, and software portability via containerization.
“Wind River’s collaboration with FogHorn will solve two big challenges in Industrial IoT today, getting analytics and machine learning close to the devices generating the data, and managing thousands to hundreds of thousands of endpoints across their product lifecycle,” said Michael Krutz, Chief Product Officer at Wind River. “We’re very excited about this integrated solution, and the significant value it will deliver to our joint customers globally.”
FogHorn’s Lightning product portfolio embeds edge intelligence directly into small-footprint IoT devices. By enabling data processing at or near the source of sensor data, FogHorn eliminates the need to send terabytes of data to the cloud for processing.
“Large organizations with complex, multi-site IoT deployments are faced with the challenge of not only pushing advanced analytics and machine learning close to the source of the data, but also the provisioning and maintenance of a high volume and variety of edge devices,” said Kevin Duffy, VP of Business Development at FogHorn. “FogHorn and Wind River together deliver the industry’s most comprehensive solution to addressing both sides of this complex IoT device equation.”
Meanwhile, FogHorn Systems also announced a collaboration with Google Cloud IoT Core to simplify the deployment and maximize the business impact of Industrial IoT (IIoT) applications.
The companies have teamed up to integrate Lightning edge analytics and machine learning platform with Cloud IoT Core.
“Cloud IoT Core simply and securely brings the power of Google Cloud’s world-class data infrastructure capabilities to the IIoT market,” said Antony Passemard, Head of IoT Product Management at Google Cloud. “By combining industry-leading edge intelligence from FogHorn, we’ve created a fully-integrated edge and cloud solution that maximizes the insights gained from every IoT device. We think it’s a very powerful combination at exactly the right time.”
Device data captured by Cloud IoT Core gets published to Cloud Pub/Sub for downstream analytics. Businesses can conduct ad hoc analysis using Google BigQuery, run advanced analytics, and apply machine learning with Cloud Machine Learning Engine, or visualize IoT data results with rich reports and dashboards in Google Data Studio.
“Our integration with Google Cloud harmonizes the workload and creates new efficiencies from the edge to the cloud across a range of dimensions,” said David King, CEO at FogHorn. “This approach simplifies the rollout of innovative, outcome-based IIoT initiatives to improve organizations’ competitive edge globally, and we are thrilled to bring this collaboration to market with Google Cloud.”
by Gary Mintchell | Jan 30, 2018 | Internet of Things
I’m all about IoT and digitalization anymore. This is the next movement following the automation trend I championed some 15 years ago.
Last month, I started receiving emails about predictions for 2018. Not my favorite topic, but I started saving them. Really only received a couple good ones. Here they are—one from Cisco and one from FogHorn Systems.
Cisco Outlook
From Cisco blog written by Cisco’s SVP of Internet of Things (IoT) and Applications Division, Rowan Trollope, comes several looks at IoT from a variety of angles. There is more at the blog. I encourage you to visit for more details.
Until now, the Internet-of-Things revolution has been, with notable outlier examples, largely theoretical and experimental. In 2018, we expect that many existing projects will show measurable returns, and more projects get launched to capitalize on data produced by billions of new connected things.
With increased adoption there will be challenges: Our networks were not built to support the volumes and types of traffic that IoT generates. Security systems were not originally designed to protect connected infrastructure against IoT attacks. And managing industrial equipment that is connected to traditional IT requires new partnerships.
I asked the leaders of some of the IoT-focused teams at Cisco to describe their predictions for the coming year, to showcase some of these changes. Here they are.
IoT Data Becomes a Bankable Asset
In 2018, winning with IoT will mean taking control of the overwhelming flood of new data coming from the millions of things already connected, and the billions more to come. Simply consolidating that data isn’t the solution, neither is giving data away with the vague hope of achieving business benefits down the line. Data owners need to take control of their IoT data to drive towards business growth. The Economist this year said, “Data is the new oil,” and we agree.
This level of data control will help businesses deliver new services that drive top-line results.
– Jahangir Mohammed, VP & GM of IoT, Cisco
AI Revolutionizes Data Analytics
In 2018, we will see a growing convergence between the Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence. AI+IoT will lead to a shift away from batch analytics based on static datasets, to dynamic analytics that leverages streaming data.
Typically, AI learns from patterns. It can predict future trends and recommend business-critical actions. AI plus IoT can recommend, say, when to service a part before it fails or how to route transit vehicles based on constantly-changing data.
– Maciej Kranz, VP, Strategic Innovation at Cisco, and author of New York Times bestseller, Building the Internet of Things
Interoperable IoT Becomes the Norm
The growth of devices and the business need for links between them has made for a wild west of communications in IoT. In 2018, a semblance of order will come to the space.
With the release of the Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF) 1.3 specification, consumer goods manufacturers can now choose a secure, standards-based approach to device-to-device interactions and device-to-cloud services in a common format, without having to rely on, or settle for, a proprietary device-to-cloud ecosystem.
Enterprise IoT providers will also begin to leverage OCF for device-to-device communications in workplace and warehouse applications, and Open Mobile Alliance’s Lightweight Machine-to-Machine (LwM2M) standard will take hold as the clear choice for remote management of IoT devices.
In Industrial IoT, Open Process Communication’s Unified Architecture (OPC-UA) has emerged as the clear standard for interoperability, seeing record growth in adoption with over 120 million installs expected as 2017 draws to an end. It will continue to grow into new industrial areas in 2018 driven by support for Time Sensitive Networking.
– Chris Steck, Head of Standardization, IoT & Industries, Cisco
IoT Enables Next-Gen Manufacturing
Manufacturing is buzzing about Industrie 4.0, the term for a collection of new capabilities for smart factories, that is driving what is literally the next industrial revolution. IoT technologies are connecting new devices, sensors, machines, and other assets together, while Lean Six Sigma and continuous improvement methodologies are harvesting value from new IoT data. Early adopters are already seeing big reductions in equipment downtime (from 15 to 95%), process waste and energy consumption in factories.
– Bryan Tantzen, Senior Director, Industry Products, Cisco
Connected Roadways Lay the Groundwork for Connected Cars
Intelligent roadways that sense conditions and traffic will adjust speed limits, synchronize street lights, and issue driver warnings, leading to faster and safer trips for drivers and pedestrians sharing the roadways. As these technologies are deployed, they become a bridge to the connected vehicles of tomorrow. The roadside data infrastructure gives connected cars a head start.
Connected cities will begin using machine learning (ML) to strategically deploy emergency response and proactive maintenance vehicles like tow trucks, snow plows, and more.
– Bryan Tantzen, Senior Director, Industry Products, Cisco
Botnets Make More Trouble
Millions of new connected consumer devices make a nice attack surface for hackers, who will continue to probe the connections between low-power, somewhat dumb devices and critical infrastructure.
The biggest security challenge I see is the creation of Distributed Destruction of Service (DDeOS) attacks that employ swarms of poorly-protected consumer devices to attack public infrastructure through massively coordinated misuse of communication channels.
IoT botnets can direct enormous swarms of connected sensors like thermostats or sprinkler controllers to cause damaging and unpredictable spikes in infrastructure use, leading to things like power surges, destructive water hammer attacks, or reduced availability of critical infrastructure on a city or state-wide level.
– Shaun Cooley, VP and CTO, Cisco
Blockchain Adds Trust
Cities are uniquely complex connected systems that don’t work without one key shared resource: trust.
From governmental infrastructure to private resources, to financial networks, to residents and visitors, all of a city’s constituents have to trust, for example, that the roads are sound and that power systems and communication networks are reliable. Those working on city infrastructure itself can’t live up to this trust without knowing that they are getting accurate data. With the growth of IoT, the data from sensors, devices, people, and processes is getting increasingly decentralized—yet systems are more interdependent than ever.
As more cities adopt IoT technologies to become smart—thus relying more heavily on digital transactions to operate—we see blockchain technology being used more broadly to put trust into data exchanges of all kinds. A decentralized data structure that monitors and verifies digital transactions, blockchain technology can ensure that each transaction—whether a bit of data streaming from distributed air quality sensors, a transaction passing between customs agencies at an international port, or a connection to remote digital voting equipment—be intact and verifiable.
– Anil Menon, SVP & Global President, Smart+Connected Communities, Cisco
FogHorn Systems
Sastry Malladi, CTO of FogHorn Systems, has shared his top five predictions for the IIoT in 2018.
1. Momentum for edge analytics and edge intelligence in the IIoT will accelerate in 2018.
Almost every notable hardware vendor has a ruggedized line of products promoting edge processing. This indicates that the market is prime for Industrial IoT (IIoT) adoption. With technology giants announcing software stacks for the edge, there is little doubt that this momentum will only accelerate during 2018. Furthermore, traditional industries, like manufacturing, that have been struggling to showcase differentiated products, will now embrace edge analytics to drive new revenue streams and/or significant yield improvements for their customers.
2. Additionally, any industry with assets being digitized and making the leap toward connecting or instrumenting brownfield environments is well positioned to leverage the value of edge intelligence.
Usually, the goal of these initiatives is to have deep business impact. This can be delivered by tapping into previously unknown or unrealized efficiencies and optimizations. Often these surprising insights are uncovered only through analytics and machine learning. Industries with often limited access to bandwidth, such as oil and gas, mining, fleet and other verticals, truly benefit from edge intelligence.
3. Business cases and ROI are critical for IIoT pilots and adoption in 2018
The year 2017 was about exploring IIoT and led to the explosion of proof of concepts and pilot implementations. While this trend will continue into 2018, we expect increased awareness about the business value edge technologies bring to the table. Companies that have been burned by the “Big Data Hype” – where data was collected but little was leveraged – will assess IIoT engagements and deployments for definitive ROI. As edge technologies pick up speed in proving business value, the adoption rate will exponentially rise to meet the demands of ever-increasing IoT applications.
IIoT standards will be driven by customer successes and company partnerships
4. IT and OT teams will collaborate for successful IIoT deployments
IIoT deployments will start forcing closer engagement between IT and operations technology (OT) teams. Line of business leaders will get more serious around investing in digitization, and IT will become the cornerstone required for the success of these initiatives. What was considered a wide gap between the two sectors – IT and OT – will bridge thanks to the recognized collaboration needed to successfully deploy IIoT solutions and initiatives.
5. Edge computing will reduce security vulnerabilities for IIoT assets.
While industries do recognize the impact of an IIoT security breach there is surprisingly little implementation of specific solutions. This stems from two emerging trends:
a) Traditional IT security vendors are still repositioning their existing products to address IIoT security concerns.
b) A number of new entrants are developing targeted security solutions that are specific to a layer in the stack, or a particular vertical.
This creates the expectation that, if and when an event occurs, these two classes of security solutions are sufficient enough. Often IoT deployments are considered greenfield and emerging, so these security breaches still seem very futuristic, even though they are happening now. Consequently, there is little acceleration to deploy security solutions, and most leaders seem to employ a wait-and-watch approach. The good news is major security threats, like WannaCry, Petya/Goldeneye and BadRabbit, do resurface IIoT security concerns during the regular news cycle. However, until security solutions are more targeted, and evoke trust, they may not help move the needle.
by Gary Mintchell | Oct 12, 2017 | Internet of Things, Manufacturing IT, Operations Management
Dell Technologies has moved its Internet of Things initiative from what was almost a “skunk works” group to division status. Michael Dell, CEO, Jeremy Burton, CMO, and Ray O’Farrell, VMware CTO and GM of the new division all spoke to a large group of international journalists, analysts, and influencers Tuesday October 10 to unveil the new division and a host of other news.
Since the “things” of the Internet of Things are generally smart, Dell Technologies dubbed the new initiative as IQT or the IQ of Things.
[Dell Technologies provides transportation and a room for me to attend its events and sometimes compensates me for some of the interviews and writing I do. However, what I write and say is purely mine.]
Takeaway: Dell is seriously approaching manufacturing along with other industries in its IoT push. It approaches the great IT/OT divide from the IT side of things rather than my usual sources who are from the OT side.
Dell introduced me to its IoT work about two years ago. I’ve watched the group grow. Then came the mega-acquisition/merger between Dell and EMC forming Dell Technologies. Read the press release below and the bulleted highlights carefully and notice that the merger is well along in optimization. Often these mergers consume management time for years. In this case, a mere year has passed and much integration has been accomplished.
By the way, Dell set up a “Newsdesk” before the event where they interviewed the six Influencers invited. Here is a link to my interview. Others included Bob Egan, William McCabe (who interestingly enough had just spent time in my hometown of Jackson Center, Ohio–how’s that for weird), Eric Vanderburg, Tamara McCleary, and Dan Newman.
News summary
- New IoT Era Heralds Return to ‘Distributed Computing’
- New “Distributed Core” computing model the basis of IoT strategy
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning technology to work in concert with IoT infrastructure to deliver smarter, more predictive systems
- New Dell Technologies IoT Division to orchestrate development of products and services across Dell Technologies.
- New IoT specific products, labs and partner program help customers speed implementation of IoT projects
- Dell Technologies to invest $1B in IoT R&D over next three years
Rather than the usual marketing speak of a press release, this one is well crafted. So, I present to you the full press release from Dell Technologies diving into the announcements
Full story
Dell Technologies today unveiled its Internet of Things (IoT) vision and strategy, a new IoT division as well as new IoT specific products, labs, partner program and consumption models. The announcement underscores Dell Technologies commitment to helping customers realize their digital future by safely navigating the complex and often fragmented IoT landscape.
IoT, a New Distributed Model for Computing
As more and more customers look to digitally transform their business, a new model of computing is emerging. For the last 15 years the IT industry has seen the rise of Cloud Computing, a highly centralized model for delivering IT services. But in an age where every type of device, from phones to cars to oil rigs to robots to heart monitors are alive and intelligent, there is a requirement for a “distributed core” focused on real time processing of information. These devices simply cannot wait for a response from centralized cloud infrastructure that may be ‘seconds’ away.
“IoT is fundamentally changing how we live, how organizations operate and how the world works” said Michael Dell, chairman and chief executive officer of Dell Technologies. “Dell Technologies is leading the way for our customers with a new distributed computing architecture that brings IoT and artificial intelligence together in one, interdependent ecosystem from the edge to the core to the cloud. The implications for our global society will be nothing short of profound.”
Customers have expressed a growing need for one company to pull together complete IoT solutions that can be deployed within their organizations. Dell Technologies’ comprehensive approach to IoT is based on leading technology and services and a carefully curated partner ecosystem designed to realize value for customers today and prepare them for the future.
New Dell Technologies IoT Division
The company’s new IoT Division will be led by VMware CTO Ray O’Farrell, and is chartered with orchestrating the development of IoT products and services across the Dell Technologies family. The IoT Solutions Division will combine internally developed technologies with offerings from the vast Dell Technologies ecosystem to deliver complete solutions for the customer.
“Dell Technologies has long seen the opportunity within the rapidly growing world of IoT, given its rich history in the edge computing market” explained Ray O’Farrell, VMware EVP & CTO, and general manager for Dell Technologies IoT division. “Our new IoT Division will leverage the strength across all of Dell Technologies family of businesses to ensure we deliver the right solution – in combination with our vast partner ecosystem – to meet customer needs and help them deploy integrated IoT systems with greater ease.”
Organic Investments in our IoT Future – Products, Labs, Partner Program
Over the next three years, Dell Technologies is investing $1B in new IoT products, solutions, labs, partner program and ecosystem.
Today Dell Technologies already provides Edge Gateways, which can be secured and managed by VMware Pulse IoT Control Center. Dell EMC PowerEdge C-Series servers have been enhanced for batch training and machine learning as a part of the distributed core. Dell EMC Isilon and Elastic Cloud Storage provide file and object storage for massive amounts of data and enable analytics through HDFS. Pivotal Cloud Foundry (PCF) and Pivotal Container Service (PKS) provide an ideal platform for developing new cloud-based analytics applications. Virtustream’s PCF Service provides a managed Pivotal Cloud Foundry Service simplifying the deployment and operation of mission-critical cloud architected workloads in Virtustream Enterprise Cloud, while Virtustream Storage Cloud is available for off-premises cloud object storage. Finally, Dell Boomi rapidly connects relevant data to enhance cloud-based analytics and deep learning.
New product development initiatives include:
- Dell EMC ‘Project Nautilus’: Software that enables the ingestion and querying of data streams from IoT gateways in real time. Data can subsequently be archived to file or object storage for deeper advanced analytics;
- ‘Project Fire’: a hyper converged platform part of the VMware Pulse family of IoT solutions that includes simplified management, local compute, storage and IoT applications such as real-time analytics. ‘Project Fire’ enables businesses to roll-out IoT use cases faster and have consistent infrastructure software from edge to core to cloud;
- RSA ‘Project IRIS’: Currently under development in RSA Labs, Iris extends the Security Analytics capability to provide threat visibility and monitoring right out to the edge;
- Disruptive technologies like processor accelerators will increase the velocity of analytics closer to the edge. Collaboration with industry leaders like VMware, Intel and NVIDIA and the Dell Technologies Capital investment in Graphcore reflect opportunities to optimize servers for AI, machine learning and deep learning performance.
- Project ‘Worldwide Herd’: for performing analytics on geographically dispersed data – increasingly important to enable deep learning on datasets that cannot be moved for reasons of size, privacy and regulatory concern.
Customers can also now visit one of the newly designed Dell Technologies IoT Labs.
New IoT services initiatives include:
- IoT Vision Workshop – identifies and prioritizes high-value business use cases for IoT data – essentially how and where to deploy IoT analytics that drive business.
- IoT Technology Advisory – develops the overall IoT architecture and roadmap for implementation.
In addition, with the core focus on technology and services, Dell Technologies’ strategy is to grow the IoT footprint via a strong partner program and ecosystem.
- Dell’s award-winning IoT Solutions Partner Programis a carefully curated, multi-tiered program comprising more than 90 partners from enterprises like Intel, Microsoft and SAP to start-ups like Action Point, IMS Evolve, FogHorn and Zingbox.
- The program will now support partners across all Dell Technologies businesses, allowing for easier collaboration and implementation of blueprints.
- An example of the partner ecosystem at work is the recent announcementthat VMware and SAP are collaborating to create an integrated solution for IoT analytics and vertical applications. The solution utilizes VMware Pulse IoT Center, SAP Cloud Platform and SAP Leonardo and is designed to help customers roll out IoT use cases faster and scale more easily.
Dell Technologies continues the commitment to openness and standardization in IoT by participation in efforts such as EdgeX Foundry, the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) and the OpenFog Consortium. Seeded by Dell source code, EdgeX Foundry is a vendor-neutral open source project building a common interoperability framework to facilitate an ecosystem for edge computing. Since launching in April 2017, EdgeX Foundry has grown to more than 60 member organizations. Recently the project announced its first major milestone with the ‘Barcelona’ code release, as well as an alliance with the IIC to collaborate on testbeds.
IoT is creating new revenue models for customers and, in turn, Dell Technologies is offering new financing options to support those customers. In particular, Dell Technologies provides cloud-like payment options through Dell Financial Services flexible consumption models. These payment solutions are available across the Dell Technologies family of business and allow customers flexibility in technology acquisition and consumption.
Investments in IoT Future through Dell Technologies Capital
Dell Technologies Capital, the venture arm of Dell Technologies, is partnering closely with the new IoT division, providing industry insight and relationships to support its strategic agenda. Through its investments in promising startups and founders, Dell Technologies Capital provides a valuable link to the external innovation ecosystem, effectively accelerating the development and deployment of new IoT, AI and ML technologies and solutions. Dell Technologies Capital will be showcasing some of these startups and investments at the company’s New York IQT event, including:
- Edico Genome, creator of world’s first processor designed to analyze next-generation sequencing data
- FogHorn Systems, a leading developer of edge-device intelligence software for IoT solutions
- Graphcore, a developer of next-generation processors optimized to accelerate AI-solutions
- Moogsoft, a market leader in applying Artificial Intelligence to IT Ops (AIOps)
- Zingbox, a developer of IoT security solutions to enable the Internet of Trusted Things
Dell Technologies family consists of the following brands: Dell, Dell EMC, Pivotal, RSA, Secureworks, Virtustream and VMware.
by Gary Mintchell | Jul 11, 2017 | Internet of Things, Operations Management
When it comes to the Internet of Things, it is becoming all about the platform. Every week is a new one. Most are built by suppliers in an attempt to either bring in everyone’s data to their systems, e.g. Microsoft, SAP, Exosite, Cisco, Siemens, GE, etc.
One platform is designed to be essentially built only with standards. As far as I know, I’m the only one writing about it–and have been the only one for at least 10 years as it has developed. That is the Open Industrial Interoperability Ecosystem (OIIE) promulgated by MIMOSA.
Another platform assembled with the leadership of Dell EMC’s IoT team is open source dubbed EdgeX Foundry.
This announcement from FogHorn Systems adds the nuance of machine learning to its platform.
FogHorn Systems today announced the availability of Lightning ML, the newest version of its Lightning edge intelligence software platform for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Lightning ML is now the industry’s first IIoT software platform with integrated machine learning capabilities and universal compatibility across all major IIoT edge systems.
Accenture predicts that IIoT can add $14.2 trillion to the global economy by 2030. However, industrial environments present a challenge to status quo methods for data collection and analysis.
“The money and time required to move massive amounts of machine data to the cloud for
analysis, only to send the results back to the edge, often makes little sense,” said Mike
Guilfoyle, Director of Research and Senior Analyst at ARC Advisory Group. “In many instances
cloud computing won’t be practical, necessary, or desirable. The reality is that edge intelligence is critical to a successful overall analytics strategy.”
“FogHorn is accelerating the pace of innovation in edge computing by not just democratizing analytics but by making machine learning accessible to industrial operators,” said FogHorn CEO David C. King. “The addition of FogHorn Lightning ML is a monumental leap forward indelivering on the promise of actionable insights for our IIoT customers. In the initial launch of FogHorn’s Lightning platform, we successfully miniaturized the massive computing capabilities previously available only in the cloud. This allows customers to run powerful big data analytics directly on operations technology (OT) and IIoT devices right at the edge through our complex event processing (CEP) analytics engine. With the introduction of Lightning ML, we now offer customers the game changing combination of real-time streaming analytics and advanced machine learning capabilities powered by our high-performance CEP engine.”
Machine Learning at the Edge
Lightning ML brings the power of machine learning at the edge in three groundbreaking ways:
1. Leverages existing models and algorithms: Industrial customers can seamlessly plug in and execute proprietary algorithms and machine learning models on live data streams produced by their physical assets and industrial control systems.
2. Makes machine learning OT-accessible: Non-technical personnel can use FogHorn’s tools to generate powerful machine learning insights without the need to constantly rely on in-house or third party data scientists.
3. Runs in tiny software footprint: Lightning ML enables complex machine learning models to run on highly-constrained compute devices such as PLCs, Raspberry Pi systems, tiny ruggedized IIoT gateways, as well as more powerful Industrial PCs and servers. Even with the addition of advanced machine learning capabilities, the complete Micro edition of the Lightning ML platform requires less than 256MB of memory footprint.
“FogHorn’s breakthrough edge computing technology brings the power of big data analytics and machine learning to the OT (operations technology) world,” said Casey Taniguchi, General Manager and Head of Business Development Center at Yokogawa Electric Corporation, a global leader in process and industrial automation systems. “The introduction of support for ARM32 processors, advanced data pre-processing capabilities and streaming analytics accomplished in a tiny footprint, along with seamless on-prem/cloud integration represents a major step forward in speeding the adoption of FogHorn’s technology in a wide variety of IIoT markets and industrial use cases. We look forward to working closely with FogHorn to incorporate all of these groundbreaking technologies into Yokogawa’s family of advanced industrial automation solutions.”
Comprehensive Support for IIoT Hardware
While the first Lightning release supported all x86-based IIoT gateways and OT systems, Lightning ML also supports ARM32 — one of the most widely used processors in OT control systems (like PLCs and DCSs) and the newest generation of small footprint Raspberry Pi derivative IIoT gateways.
“Fog computing requires a variety of different compute performance levels, all of which can be enabled by the flexible, low-power ARM architecture,” said Rhonda Dirvin, director of IoT and embedded, Business Segments Group, ARM. “FogHorn Systems’ Lightning platform supports and validates ARM-based solutions in OpenFog applications, and will enable new efficiencies and applications in the industrial edge computing space.”
On-Premise Centric and Cloud Agnostic
The FogHorn Lightning ML software platform can run entirely on premise or connect to any private cloud or public cloud environment. This gives customers maximum flexibility in selecting the best deployment model in terms of IT infrastructure, security policy and cost.
Designed for Operational Technology
FogHorn Lightning ML has been specifically designed to empower OT users through a simple drag-and-drop authoring tool that abstracts away the complexities of an underlying IIoT deployment, allowing operators to focus on translating their domain expertise into meaningful analytics and machine learning insights.
“OT staff are domain experts in their respective industrial environments, but not necessarily experts in edge computing and advanced IT,” said FogHorn CTO Sastry Malladi. “By giving them intuitive tools to automate, monitor and take action on their industrial data in real-time, operators can enhance situational awareness, prevent process failures and identify new efficiencies that lead to huge business benefits. This is a very different approach from other IT-centric solutions that fail to leverage the tribal knowledge of key OT experts.”
FogHorn develops “edge intelligence” software for industrial and commercial IoT application solutions.
by Gary Mintchell | May 15, 2017 | Internet of Things, Operations Management
Enterprise begins to meet operations from the enterprise side of technology at Dell World—now Dell EMC World following the mammoth acquisition of EMC by Dell last year–via the Internet of Things. That followed Michael Dell leading the company into privately owned territory.
Michael Dell himself prominently mentioned manufacturing and Internet of Things (IoT) during his keynotes of 2015 and 2016. Perhaps not as much this year at the first totally combined conferences held May 8-11 in Las Vegas. But there was so much enterprise product news and so little time.
Dell also stressed the success of combining the companies as well as making clear the new organization structure of Dell Technologies—the company name—consisting of Dell, Dell EMC, Pivotal, RSA, SecureWorks, Virtustream, and VMware.
Digital Transformation formed the theme message of the week. This conversation consists of business transformation and applications changes rapidly taking place now. Part of the transformation is formed by IT Transformation requiring adoption and assimilation of a new generation of servers, applications, and technologies. Millennials’ expectations (and maybe also some of us “old” guys) fire the Workforce Transformation now building. One study found that 82% of millennials would quit or not hire in initially based upon the level of technology tools offered. Finally all this digital infrastructure, the cloud, and communications are fueling the Security Transformation.
Of course, Dell Technologies is positioned to lead in all of these. Michael Dell pointed out that the company is the leader in 15 Gartner Magic Quadrants.
Internet of Things
But we are really here to discuss the point of intersection of all this IT stuff with Operations Technology—the Internet of Things. Dell EMC IoT leader Andy Rhodes received prominent positioning during the Day Two Keynotes. As an aside, the Day Three technology keynotes blew away any really cool tech keynotes I’ve seen in the past. Must be nice to have marketing dollars.
By the way, at 5’10” I think of myself of at least average height. Talking with some of the IoT team leaders made me feel like a refugee from the Island of Lilliput. Andy Rhodes, Jason Shepherd, and Keven Terwilliger are 6’5”, 6’’7”, and 6’8” (if memory serves).
News Summary:
• New VMware Pulse IoT Center, Dell EMC IoT Technology Advisory Services simplify IoT deployments
• New IoT partnerships with Atos, Bosch and more
• Dell EMC and VMware, founding members of new EdgeX Foundry Linux Foundation project, join 50 other companies to build open framework for edge computing
New IoT Products and Services
Simplified “Things” Management – The new VMware Pulse IoT Center is a secure IoT infrastructure management solution that will enable customers to have complete control of their connected things. VMware Pulse IoT Center will help customers to more efficiently manage, operate, scale and protect their IoT projects from the edge to the cloud. Dell will be offering VMware Pulse IoT Center as the preferred enterprise management and monitoring solution for Dell Edge Gateways. By plugging Pulse IoT Center into the new EdgeX Foundry, VMware will be able to offer system and device management for the EdgeX ecosystem.
IoT Advisory Services – IoT Technology Advisory Service is a new consulting offer from Dell EMC Services to help organizations determine the key capabilities and architecture required to leverage IoT data (e.g., sensors, beacons, gateways, mobile phones, wearables, connected devices). This information can be used for initiatives such as optimizing key operational processes, reducing compliance and security risks, uncovering new revenue opportunities and creating more compelling customer engagements.
Open Source Framework for Interoperable Edge Computing – The Linux Foundation recently launched EdgeX Foundry, an open source software project chartered to build a common framework and surrounding reference platform for edge computing. It will drive interoperability between proprietary value-added applications and existing connectivity standards. It was started by a community of more than 50 companies such as AMD, Analog Devices, Dell EMC, Foghorn and VMware to enable an ecosystem of plug-and-play components that can be combined to quickly create secure and scalable IoT solutions. Dell contributed more than a dozen microservices and over 125,000 lines of source code under Apache 2.0 to seed the project, additional contributions are already underway from other members. EdgeX Foundry is architected to operate on any hardware, on any operating system and with microservices developed in any application environment for maximum scale.
I have previously written about the Open Source EdgeX Foundry. This, I feel is the most significant of the news. The VMware announcement shows the coming together of the various parts of the Dell Technologies portfolio. People studying IoT for implementation in their companies are considering whether going with a consultant is the wise thing to do. Dell EMC now offers that alternative.
Curated Partnerships
Dell has carefully curated a group of IoT software and services partners through the Dell IoT Solutions Partner and Dell EMC Partner Programs. Many partners have deep, proven expertise in industry-specific IoT challenges, and can help with everything from managing multiprotocol data sources to security to analytics. New partners recently added to the program include Atos, Bosch, GreatBay Software, ForgeRock, IOTech, Mocana and Modius.
Today’s key IoT partner news includes:
• Dell and Bosch have jointly developed an Industry 4.0 jump start kit to help customers implement IoT projects quickly to realize faster ROI. The kit consists of multiple Bosch XDK sensors, a Dell Edge Gateway, ready-to-go use-cases, cloud integration and software, all preconfigured.
• Atos and Dell EMC are working together to build an IoT service management framework, Atos Codex IoT Services, to allow customers to be assured that all users can continuously create value from their connected devices.
[DISCLAIMER: Dell Technologies provides some compensation to support my work. It does not edit what I do.]
