The proliferation of IoT devices and endpoints across virtually every scenario of our economy requires the ability to develop, orchestrate, and manage unique IoT and Edge solutions that manage massive amounts of data requiring real-time intelligence, which ultimately is powering the necessity to move compute cycles and data analytics closer to where the data and devices reside.
Whether it’s on the industrial floor managing the machining of precision grade aircraft parts requiring real-time decisions to ensure worker safety or with an autonomous vehicle making instantaneous decisions to move freight across a manufacturing floor or attempting to avoid pedestrians in a crosswalk or providing near-instant field pharmaceutical testing to support first responders and essential personnel – having capable and dependable solutions on the Edge matters.
Our customers have been embracing IoT solutions as a core strategy to differentiate their market solutions, accelerate innovative business outcomes, ensure worker safety, and address societal matters. From predicting and preventing manufacturing failures to optimizing smart spaces and energy management to improving worker safety across agribusiness and commercial farming to improving patient outcomes, Arrow provides essential IoT solutions and strategies. From the intelligent cloud to the end points and devices, our capabilities and ecosystem, IoT portfolio, and customer success have experienced tremendous growth – and we are only at the tip of the iceberg.
One area and key element of this growth that is accelerating more than any technology or strategy (and is virtually essential in all critical IoT solutions) is the Intelligent Edge. Why? Because as we enter the Fourth Industrial Revolution, where Digital Transformation is a requirement and not an option, IoT is no longer about connecting endpoints. It’s no longer about taking data from those end points and pushing to it to the Intelligent Cloud for deep analytics or asset and sensor management. It’s about the sum of all endpoints and the wealth of associated data, the sum of the spatial and temporal requirements a particular solution necessitates, the sum of the analytics across the solutions, and the sum of the services required to support and manage complex end-to-end solutions. It’s about the endpoint through the Intelligent Edge to the Intelligent Cloud, and managed by end-to-end services.
Companies that can manage the complexity of these solutions and pivot to meet changing business priorities will lead this revolution and drive additional innovation. The IBM Edge Application Manager is an autonomous management solution designed to enable AI, analytics and IoT enterprise workloads to be deployed and remotely managed, delivering real-time analysis and insight at scale – up to 10,000 devices simultaneously. It can run anywhere and manage workloads on virtually any Edge endpoint – from servers to networks to gateways to devices across any public or private cloud. With the IBM Edge Application Manager, Arrow will be able to orchestrate, deliver, and manage complex IoT and Edge solutions across a wide range of commercial segments from manufacturing and agribusiness, logistics and transportation, telecommunications, and petrochemical, to healthcare and pharmaceutical. Our collaboration will drive innovation and business outcomes for our customers for years to come.
One particular challenge is that many IoT and Edge solutions are unique to certain business requirements and outcomes; precise physical deployment topology; or necessitate individually adapting monitoring, maintenance, and services to that given solution. This problem is one where Arrow and IBM are adept in excelling and deploying solutions. Using Arrow’s multiple integration centers – with the ability to develop and orchestrate software, hardware, and service IoT and Edge bundles tailored to a customer’s unique requirements – we are able to deliver those solutions globally upon demand. Combined with the IBM Edge Application Manager and other IBM solutions, these IoT and Edge offerings provide capabilities and solutions upon customer demand and under changing business scenarios.
Arrow’s and IBM’s Edge solutions and collaboration will materially impact our industry and, in fact, potentially our daily lives.
