On the second day of Discover 2016, I was able to walk the show floor, as well as attend some coffee talk sessions.  The major themes of the day were IOT, and the Intelligent Edge.

Internet Of Things

The Internet Of Things is nothing new.  We have had all sorts of connected devices available over the last several years.  However, 2016 has certainly shown the most rapid growth in IOT devices and purchases.  Everything from smart homes to shopping carts – internet connected smart devices are certainly here to stay and will grow even more rapidly in 2017.

Most IOT deployments have been focused on the consumer.  With systems like Samsung’s Smart Things and voice enabled controllers / assistants like Amazon’s Echo, homeowners have been able to automate functions within the home.  Refrigerators are also now available as an IOT device, keeping track of grocery lists and food inventories.  However, HPE is predicting a greater shift to more business related IOT devices.

On stage, during the daily keynote, the speaker role played working at an office where a report was due.  By using a tablet, wireless, a printer, and an IOT proximity sensor, his goal was to print out a recent report.  His app was able to detect that he was standing next to a particular printer, and print to that, instead of manually selecting from a list of printers on a print server.  Next, using Alexa on Amazon’s Echo, he was able to get a listing of all the IOT connected devices in the office, as well as interact with them.

While there are an infinite number of possibilities for what to use IOT devices for, one thing remains – the data needs to be processed.

The Intelligent Edge

This is where The Intelligent Edge comes in.  With large amounts of IOT devices, large amounts of data will be generated.  This data will need to be processed somewhere.  HPE has introduced Edge compute devices, design be the broker between the IOT devices and the Cloud.

The above diagram from HPE represents the data and control flow for IOT devices.  By dedicated a device to handle steps 2 and 3, The Intelligent Edge will allow for reliable data, dedicated compute, and greater security.  You can view the available options for HPE Edgeline devices here.

All travel expenses and incidentals were paid for by HPE to attend Discover 2016, but with no expectations about coverage through this blog or social media.