Summary
Hewlett Packard Enterprise recently announced a number of new hardware, software and services offerings centered on its edge computing, converged OT and analytics, and expanding on the company's Edgeline Converged Edge Systems portfolio. The announcements represent the first step in building out an ambitious product family and ecosystem around Edgeline OT Link hardware modules and the new Edgeline OTLink IoT Platform software.
The 451 Take
The HPE Edgeline story started with a new converged IT/OT edge hardware platform and the rebranding of existing IoT gateway devices. It has since grown to include a hardware product line, an IoT platform, management software, services and partnerships. The introduction of a new interface type, Edgeline OT Link, makes sense from an 80/20 rule perspective in getting the costs and accessibility down in comparison to de facto standard PXI; however, it (temporarily) narrows the number of systems that the new Edgeline EL300 can interface with until a broader array of interface types becomes available. The addition of a drag-and-drop IoT platform from HPE should appeal to IT engineers who are unfamiliar with the intricacies of data acquisition and control systems, and to OT engineers who are likely familiar with the paradigm from National Instruments LabView and other similar systems. The new price point of the Edgeline EL300 and Edgeline OT Link will open new use cases and applications for HPE that were previously unreachable. If the company is successful in expanding the quantity of Edgeline OT Link hardware modules available as well as third-party support for its IoT Platform software and hardware, it will prove to have been a risk worth taking.
Context
The major announcement surrounds HPE Edgeline OT Link, the company's new branding of hardware, software and services to connect to operational technology such as control and data acquisition systems, and industrial networks. Previously, the HPE Edgeline EL1000 and EL4000 systems introduced support for the OT standard, PXI (PCI eXtensions for Instrumentation), and a specification for PCI cards to connect to a multitude of legacy OT interfaces used in manufacturing, transportation and utility equipment, among many others. This was a key differentiator for HPE at the time, as most competitors were limited to variations on the Intel IoT gateway reference platform, which only supported the two to three most popular interface types, such as CAN (Controller Area Network, an automotive standard) bus.
The new Edgeline OT Link hardware modules initially support five interface types: CAN bus, TSN (time sensitive networking, previously AVB and now an expanded IEEE 802.1 specification under development), VPU (Vision Processing Unit, in partnership with Intel as a byproduct of the latter's Movidius acquisition, to accelerate video analytics), and analog and digital I/O interfaces. The initial selection foretells the market segments that the new modules are targeted at, namely transportation, edge-video analytics (predominantly a smart city use case, but also in use in smart buildings), latency-sensitive applications such as industrial automation and mobile front-haul networks, and general legacy system connectivity via analog and digital I/O.
The new HPE Edgeline EL300 hardware platform is a ruggedized, fan-less appliance targeted at embedded applications, with native support of the new Edgeline OT Link hardware modules and integrated Lights Out (iLO+) hardware capability normally found on HPE servers. This joins the Edgeline EL1000 and larger Edgeline EL4000 platforms, which can also utilize the Edgeline OT Link modules via an optional expansion chassis. The edge compute (or Edgeline Converged Edge System in HPE's case) market requires a combination of form factors depending on industry. An Edgeline system located on a harsh factory floor has different requirements environmentally, I/O interfaces and price points than a device located in a micro-datacenter with more amenable environmental factors.
Also introduced concurrent with the HPE Edgeline OT Link modules and Edgeline EL300 was HPEs newest IoT platform, Edgeline OT Link Platform Software (OTP), not to be confused with the HPE Universal IoT Platform (UIoT), which is targeted primarily at network operators and mobile device connectivity. OTP is focused on edge data ingestion from industrial devices, and subsequently handing the data to local containerized analytics applications or using built-in connectors to SAP, Microsoft Azure or AWS. The company also introduced a marketplace for third-party application vendors as part of the launch, with multiple partners appearing at launch time.
OTP utilizes pre-built modules and a drag-and-drop graphical interface convention to build process flows, where you wire together inputs with outputs (e.g., Azure or AWS) and intermediate transformation (data normalization or summarization) or analytical steps (e.g., Predix). Control systems and industrial engineers are familiar with this approach, which is also utilized in National Instruments LabView system that is targeted at the same use cases. It is worth noting that PXI is tied tightly to National Instruments as well, so the introduction of a graphical process platform and I/O interfaces by HPE increases the amount of overlap and competition with its partner National Instruments.
Complementing the hardware and platform software announcements are three separate management offerings, Edgeline Workload Orchestrator (EWO), Edgeline Integrated System Manager (iSM) and Edgeline Infrastructure Manager (EIM). EWO is the mechanism by which containerized applications, middleware and flows are deployed to Edgeline systems. EIM does device discovery, firmware and software updates, and ongoing health monitoring of the physical assets. ISM provides a mechanism to remotely console into the servers, as well as provide notifications of chassis intrusion (a critical issue for remotely deployed IoT gateways).
The final piece of the announcements was the immediate availability of HPE Pointnext Field applications engineering services for Edgeline OT Link. Pointnext steps in as the general contractor, so to speak, to work from co-creation/ideation workshops through the initial configuration and trials to full production. This includes staging the systems and verifying them at one of HPE's three Global IoT Innovation Labs, with a fourth lab opening in Europe in Q1 2019.
The new Edgeline OT Link hardware modules initially support five interface types: CAN bus, TSN (time sensitive networking, previously AVB and now an expanded IEEE 802.1 specification under development), VPU (Vision Processing Unit, in partnership with Intel as a byproduct of the latter's Movidius acquisition, to accelerate video analytics), and analog and digital I/O interfaces. The initial selection foretells the market segments that the new modules are targeted at, namely transportation, edge-video analytics (predominantly a smart city use case, but also in use in smart buildings), latency-sensitive applications such as industrial automation and mobile front-haul networks, and general legacy system connectivity via analog and digital I/O.
The new HPE Edgeline EL300 hardware platform is a ruggedized, fan-less appliance targeted at embedded applications, with native support of the new Edgeline OT Link hardware modules and integrated Lights Out (iLO+) hardware capability normally found on HPE servers. This joins the Edgeline EL1000 and larger Edgeline EL4000 platforms, which can also utilize the Edgeline OT Link modules via an optional expansion chassis. The edge compute (or Edgeline Converged Edge System in HPE's case) market requires a combination of form factors depending on industry. An Edgeline system located on a harsh factory floor has different requirements environmentally, I/O interfaces and price points than a device located in a micro-datacenter with more amenable environmental factors.
Also introduced concurrent with the HPE Edgeline OT Link modules and Edgeline EL300 was HPEs newest IoT platform, Edgeline OT Link Platform Software (OTP), not to be confused with the HPE Universal IoT Platform (UIoT), which is targeted primarily at network operators and mobile device connectivity. OTP is focused on edge data ingestion from industrial devices, and subsequently handing the data to local containerized analytics applications or using built-in connectors to SAP, Microsoft Azure or AWS. The company also introduced a marketplace for third-party application vendors as part of the launch, with multiple partners appearing at launch time.
OTP utilizes pre-built modules and a drag-and-drop graphical interface convention to build process flows, where you wire together inputs with outputs (e.g., Azure or AWS) and intermediate transformation (data normalization or summarization) or analytical steps (e.g., Predix). Control systems and industrial engineers are familiar with this approach, which is also utilized in National Instruments LabView system that is targeted at the same use cases. It is worth noting that PXI is tied tightly to National Instruments as well, so the introduction of a graphical process platform and I/O interfaces by HPE increases the amount of overlap and competition with its partner National Instruments.
Complementing the hardware and platform software announcements are three separate management offerings, Edgeline Workload Orchestrator (EWO), Edgeline Integrated System Manager (iSM) and Edgeline Infrastructure Manager (EIM). EWO is the mechanism by which containerized applications, middleware and flows are deployed to Edgeline systems. EIM does device discovery, firmware and software updates, and ongoing health monitoring of the physical assets. ISM provides a mechanism to remotely console into the servers, as well as provide notifications of chassis intrusion (a critical issue for remotely deployed IoT gateways).
The final piece of the announcements was the immediate availability of HPE Pointnext Field applications engineering services for Edgeline OT Link. Pointnext steps in as the general contractor, so to speak, to work from co-creation/ideation workshops through the initial configuration and trials to full production. This includes staging the systems and verifying them at one of HPE's three Global IoT Innovation Labs, with a fourth lab opening in Europe in Q1 2019.
Partners
Concurrent with the launch of the application marketplace for Edgeline and OT Link, HPE announced a number of partner offerings that leverage the edge compute and converged OT capability of the new offerings. These included Keysight (formerly Agilent), SparkCognition for AI, CrowdOptic for object location/video analytics, and GE Digital for application analytics.Competition
The combination of HPE Edgeline OT Link and the broader HPE Edgeline portfolio is a category-maker in the sense that the products incorporate operational technology connections (PXI, OTLink), a drag-and-drop IoT software platform, traditional IoT Gateway capability, management and support.
There are companies, including Dell and Cisco, that sell IoT gateway devices with embedded computing and connections to legacy systems such as MODBUS or CAN bus, however the compute and management is not as robust as that found in the Edgeline EL4000, and more on par with the Edgeline EL1000. In addition, there are dozens of smaller vendors of application-specific IoT gateway devices in each of these legacy segments (industrial control, transportation, grid automation), but these devices have traditionally been compute-constrained and very low on the cost/functionality curve.
IoT platform software is a contentious market with hundreds of vendors shipping capabilities ranging from device connectivity platforms to application-specific analytics capabilities. There continue to be 'low code/no code' approaches from numerous vendors in the space, most notably Hitachi Vantara's Lumada platform and Siemens MindSphere.
It is still an early market for a low-code/drag-and-drop approach to programming workflows in IoT platforms; however, it would be a major omission not to mention the dominant position in the data acquisition and control systems segment of National Instruments and its popular LabView offering, which, more than any other vendor, this combination of hardware and software goes most directly against. As stated above, National Instruments and Keysight are partners of HPE for PXI interfaces on the first generation of the Edgeline series.
There are companies, including Dell and Cisco, that sell IoT gateway devices with embedded computing and connections to legacy systems such as MODBUS or CAN bus, however the compute and management is not as robust as that found in the Edgeline EL4000, and more on par with the Edgeline EL1000. In addition, there are dozens of smaller vendors of application-specific IoT gateway devices in each of these legacy segments (industrial control, transportation, grid automation), but these devices have traditionally been compute-constrained and very low on the cost/functionality curve.
IoT platform software is a contentious market with hundreds of vendors shipping capabilities ranging from device connectivity platforms to application-specific analytics capabilities. There continue to be 'low code/no code' approaches from numerous vendors in the space, most notably Hitachi Vantara's Lumada platform and Siemens MindSphere.
It is still an early market for a low-code/drag-and-drop approach to programming workflows in IoT platforms; however, it would be a major omission not to mention the dominant position in the data acquisition and control systems segment of National Instruments and its popular LabView offering, which, more than any other vendor, this combination of hardware and software goes most directly against. As stated above, National Instruments and Keysight are partners of HPE for PXI interfaces on the first generation of the Edgeline series.
Christian Renaud
Research Vice President, Internet of Things
As Research Vice President of 451 Research's Internet of Things practice, Christian Renaud covers the ongoing virtualization and digitization of the physical world around us. For 25 years prior to joining 451 Research, Christian built nationwide networks at large and small enterprises, worked with Fortune 50 companies in the systems integrator channel, built products at Cisco Systems and ran the company's New Markets and Technologies team.
Jeremy Korn
Research Associate
Jeremy Korn is a Research Associate at 451 Research. He graduated from Brown University with a BA in Biology and East Asian Studies and received
Aaron Sherrill
Senior Analyst
Aaron Sherrill is a Senior Analyst for 451 Research covering emerging trends, innovation