Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) this week launched a channel initiative through which it will train partners how to build and monetize edge computing solutions.
Announced at the HPE Discover 2019 conference, the Channel to Edge Institute (CEI) is a program through which HPE channel partners will be provided with the expertise needed to recommend, sell, implement and manage HPE Intelligent Edge solutions for everything from Internet of Things (IoT) environments to 5G networks. HPE also launched The Intelligent Edge and IoT Center of Excellence (CoE) and Labs within Hewlett Packard Labs to develop and commercialize new edge computing capabilities and technologies.
To deliver on that promise HPE this week also unfurled an updated implementation Aruba Central, a cloud-based platform for network management that now includes artificial intelligence (AI) tools to identify potential performance issues before they become a problem and orchestration tools and a firewall for software-defined wide area networks (SD-WANs). HPE also announced the availability of Aruba Virtual Gateways on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure cloud platforms. HPE is also adding a software-as-a-service (SaaS) application prioritization capability that provides visibility into SaaS application performance.
HPE also committed to making Aruba available as a subscription service, added additional workflow tools, revealed Aruba ClearPass Device Insight has been integrated with Aruba Central to provide a single pane of glass for managing IoT devices.
Finally, HPE announced integration alliances with ABB, Microsoft, and PTC to provide real-time intelligence and control in industrial environments.
HPE expects the total addressable market for edge computing solutions to eventually be much larger than traditional IT solutions, says Dr. Tom Bradicich, HPE vice president and global head of Edge and IoT Center of Excellence & Labs. Realizing that opportunity will require HPE to spend a lot of time an effort on partner enablement initiatives for edge computing solutions that many partners today don’t have a lot of experience building, says Bradicich.
“A lot of partners have never been there before,” says Bradicich. “The intelligent edge is quite a journey.”
It remains to be seen just how big an opportunity edge computing will become but given the level of investments being made at this early stage, edge computing solutions might very well eventually become the next trillion-dollar opportunity for the channel.
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