Tony Bartlett, Director, Data Centre Compute at Dell Technologies, South Africa, explains how Edge Computing has impacted the channel.
Edge Computing has been garnering significant attention and has already started making an impact on how organisations think about working with data, defying boundaries beyond the use of data centres.
Business happens at the edge – large quantities of data are collected, analysed and communicated at edge locations, helping organisations to make quicker decisions and adapt to changes in real-time.
With the recent shifts to virtual operations and remote working, organisations are being challenged to think of innovative models and infrastructure to cater to these rising needs.
Concurrently, the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Digital Transformation are taking place, and waves of technology have been shaping and changing the IT world and challenging how organisations do business.
Businesses need to have consistent, flexible infrastructure to quickly adapt to these shifts. With the ability of Edge Computing to capture data created near the source and the advancement of analytics applications, new business models are emerging altering the way organisations think about their technology assets.
This influx of data is soaring due to the vast adoption and proliferation of smart devices and growing connectivity. At its core, Edge Computing processes data close to the source of where it is generated, proving valuable for increasing use cases of analytics and Machine Learning. What makes this exciting is seeing how businesses will be leveraging these converging technologies, as they have transformative potential for many industries and areas. According to Gartner, by 2025, 75% of enterprise-generated data will be created and processed at the edge.
This represents a massive opportunity for channel partners who can now create, integrate, deploy and manage differentiated and best of breed solutions for our customers on top of Dell Technologies infrastructure.
But it’s important to remember that Edge solutions are complex, and no single company can deliver on every customer need. That’s why Dell Technologies is committed to curating a world-class programme of Technology and Services Providers that address all parts of the solution landscape and complement our broad portfolio of enabling Edge infrastructure. Through our ‘Edge Ecosystem Programme’, we bring together technology and services companies to help partners and their customers be at the forefront of Digital Transformation at the edge. The programme enables technology, service and OEM providers to create, integrate, deploy and manage differentiated solutions for our customers on top of Dell Technologies infrastructure. In addition to offering a robust technology stack, these partner organisations collaborate to provide customers with technology solutions to meet their diverse requirements and help them achieve their ideal Edge designs.
As part of our commitment to diving deeper into the edge, we also announced a range of purpose-built Edge Computing solutions earlier this year, that channel partners are already taking to market. From our PowerEdge servers to the Dell EMC HPC Ready Architecture for AI and Data Analytics solutions, we want to ensure our partners are capitalising on the market opportunity and help our joint customers achieve their business outcomes and innovate faster with Edge solutions.