Dell OEM’s strategic foray into the Internet of Things

There are many technology advances shaping the industry today, and even more innovations being introduced to prepare the market for the next wave of computing. With all of these going on, how does one begin to approach that evolving beast called the Internet of Things?

According to Dell OEM Solutions, APJ Area Vice President, Glen Burrows, while much of these technologies are still being defined, Dell and its strategic partners are focusing on and developing solutions that address their customers’ complex needs today.

Industrial automation, the Internet of Things (IoT) and the smart office, are a few areas that Dell OEM has been creating solutions for.

Industrial Automation

Automation capabilities continue to be of great importance to the oil and gas, life sciences and manufacturing sectors. According to Gartner, the manufacturing and natural resources industry in Malaysia will account for IT spend of USD2.5 billion in 2015.

At 20 percent, the sector will account for the largest share of Malaysia’s IT spending this year.

Burrows commented, “Manufacturers are looking to technology to help transform the way they work as technology use is still at a very basic level of automation in a significant proportion of local manufacturers, with the exception of leading electronics and automobile producers.

“Dell OEM has an extensive suite of customisable hardware ideally suited for automated process control systems, test and measurement applications and heavy machinery instrumentation. Our solutions include industrial-grade servers and storage, thin clients and ruggedised industrial PCs.”

In Asia Pacific, this trend of automating for optimisation, also segways to ‘smart cities’ or smart grid management.

Burrows observed, “Industrial Automation has pervaded numerous aspects of infrastructure and optimised these areas which include but are not limited to power grids, water management, waste management, transportation and green technologies.”

The smart office

Dell believes that there is a standard approach to transforming an existing building into a “smart” one.

Burrows explained, “To start, you need to determine the final outcomes and experiences you want from your smart building; considerations could be noise and temperature control, energy cost savings or ergonomically friendly spaces.”

He added that next, would be to construct timelines for both technology and facilities design and developing them together enables stakeholders to see the impact that both areas will have on the overall project.

The next step is to adopt a reference architecture for all the stakeholders – operations, security, maintenance, IT and sustainability to ensure that your building will be ‘future proof’.

Burrows concluded, “The final step should take care of itself if the first three steps were done correctly; the creation of a platform-based approach, with a reference architecture with the ability to implement new standards-based solutions for your Smart Office as the market continues to mature.”

• The Internet of Things (IoT), an ecosystem where sensors, devices and equipment are connected to a network and can transmit and receive data for tracking, analysis and action

• The Smart Office, the transformation of an existing building(s) into one that creates efficiency

• Industrial Automation – turn-key solutions for industries needing “industrial grade” technology.

Dell recently launched a gateway solution, the Dell IoT Gateway, that enables customers to kick-start their IoT development projects. .  Equipped with processing power, they provide customers with flexibility to perform analytics at the edge, reducing latency for data-based decisions, such as managing energy consumption or triggering a call for proactive equipment maintenance. This reduces the time and cost associated with transferring data to the cloud or data center.