7 minute read
AVEVA
from Gitex Insight
by cxoinsightme
FUELLING SMART CITY SOLUTIONS
Participating with strategic partner, Schneider Electric, AVEVA will demonstrate its Unified Operations Center for Smart Cities at the Middle East’s biggest technology exhibition.
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Industrial software leader AVEVA, together with its strategic partner Schneider Electric, will demonstrate its AVEVA Unified Operations Center for Smart Cities, which seamlessly integrates systems, sites, people and assets for cities of the future, at GITEX Technology Week.
Dr Tariq Aslam, Head of MEA, AVEVA, says, “Our Unified Operations Center is the command-and-control solution for infrastructure and smart city operators based on an integrative ‘System of Systems’ approach. It can be used to collate information from various data sources to anticipate and resolve problems even before they are presented, coordinate various resources and processes for seamless operation, and generally make more strategic decisions.
“It converges OT and IT technology into a single pane-of-glass solution, where the operator can effectively monitor and control entire city operations through a ‘City in a Box’ approach as we like to call it.”
AVEVA’s Unified Operations Center for Smart Cities and Schneider Electric’s IoT-enabled sustainability platform – EcoStruxure Resource Advisor offer smart city operators a powerful solution. The EcoStruxure Resource Advisor is a best-in-class, AIassisted, cloud-based solution for managing cross-enterprise energy and sustainability data, which shows how operators can track data across more than 400 categories to have near real-time access to their resource performance.
EcoStruxure is powered by Microsoft Azure enabling integration and interoperability to turn data into meaningful insights. The data is paired with Schneider’s unique approach to energy and sustainability consulting, bringing together technology and expertise, resulting in a “mind-plus-machine” approach to climate action.
“AVEVA, Schneider Electric and Microsoft are accelerating the delivery of smart city innovation across regions. Our unique combination of capabilities helps municipalities capitalise on the power of technology to become more agile, resilient, and sustainable. We plan to demonstrate smart cities in action on our Unified Operations Center with our strategic partners, Schneider Electric and Microsoft on their stands,” Dr Aslam adds.
It is estimated that by 2030, the world will have 43 megacities, each with more than 10 million inhabitants. Converting existing infrastructure to smart infrastructure is the key to improving cities. With unified data and analytics, smart city operators are empowered with better information, which means they can make more informed decision to optimise operations for the new environment in which they are operating.
AVEVA’s vast portfolio of smart city software solutions span facilities management, utilities, transportation, and data centres. Taking an integrated approach, AVEVA’s solutions enable disparate functions to collect, analyse, and then act on unified and holistic intelligence – supported by the help of real-time data – to enable civic leaders to make better decisions and improve living standards.
Due to the scalability of the solution, Unified Operations Center is ideally suited for not just megacities but also smaller municipalities looking to take an integrated system of systems approach to monitoring and controlling their city operations. The company works with megacities such as London, as well as smaller municipalities with populations of 50,000 or fewer, that are looking to leverage technology to improve sustainability and resilience.
AVEVA will be holding demos of its Unified Operations Center solution on Schneider Electric’s stand H5B40. Senior representatives from the company will be at GITEX Technology Week 2021 to meet with customers and partners and share their global success stories with them.
TRANSFORMING THE FUTURE WITH INTELLIGENT EDGE
Jacob Chacko, Regional Director, Middle East, Saudi & South Africa (MESA), Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, reveals how regional enterprises can succeed in the digital era and achieve optimal business outcomes through the company’s edge to cloud value proposition.
The evolving digital-first world demands that enterprises prioritise agility and adaptability. As remote and hybrid work models increasingly become the norm, as more and more applications move to the cloud and as increasing number of devices become IoT-enabled, edge computing is a critical technology that customers must leverage.
Jacob Chacko, Regional Director, Middle East, Saudi & South Africa (MESA), Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company (HPE Aruba), emphasises that edge computing can help companies keep pace with their accelerated digital transformation goals.
“Today data is getting created at the edge exponentially and this is why it is imperative for companies to have processing capabilities closer to edge
channels. Traditionally, the data that was generated used to go to a central source for processing.”
With the rapid rate of digital transformation taking place across industries, specifically in the Middle East, the need for edge computing has risen drastically.
Chacko says, “At HPE, we believe that by the year 2022, 75% of the data will be created and processed outside the data centre – it will be all at the edge. Edge computing enables techniques like predictive maintenance where the data gets processed at the device level, and instead of sending all the data from thousands of sensors, only relevant information is sent to the data centre. This enables manufacturing plants to save on costs and time, allowing for quick data-driven decision making.”
According to the HPE Aruba chief, edge computing not only helps to get in new customer experiences but also offers customers AI-driven visibility. “All these strengths point to the fact that edge computing is an evolution of the cloud computing technology and will greatly help organisations pace up their digital transformation journeys.”
Processing and analysing copious quantities of data is no match for legacy networks. HPE Aruba has identified the challenges that customers face in today’s digital environment and has introduced intelligent edge solutions. Chacko adds that the company’s Aruba ESP (Edge Services Platform) plays a key role in helping customers prepare for a post-pandemic world of hybrid working, digital-first experiences and hyper-aware facilities.
“One of the things that torments a CIO today is to how to ensure all the data, which is getting generated at the edge, is also well protected,” he explains. “AI and Machine Learning technologies help to make sure that the right users have access to specific data; identify, understand and remediate any abnormalities; and track user behaviour across systems and services among many other features. It allows for comprehensive data protection. Securing the edge is where Aruba ESP can make a huge difference. It is one of the industry’s first platforms with an AIpowered ‘sixth sense’. The solution is designed to unify, automate and secure the intelligent edge and help organisations harness its immense potential.”
Aruba ESP is designed on three building blocks – connect, protect and AI ops. Connect is about ensuring all the devices at the edge are connected as a part of a unified infrastructure and then ensuring each endpoint is holistically protected. The networking leader’s Aruba ClearPass Security portfolio caters end-to-end towards this, says Chacko.
“The last building block – AIOps – helps us to analyse all the data that is being collected by using machine learning. Gone are the days when a network engineer had to comb through console logs to figure out the problem. Today AIOps can instantly identify where the issue is and can also give you a heads up of any glitches. What used to take eight- or nine-man hours is now done in just a matter of minutes.”
HPE Aruba will be highlighting Aruba ESP and other key portfolios at this year’s GITEX Technology Week. The company aims to contribute to the show’s theme – creating a bolder digital future together – by demonstrating strengths of edge computing and how it can empower business outcomes; driving platform integration and introducing new product innovations with Wi-Fi 6 and 5G; and unveiling network-asa-service offerings.
He says, “We are looking forward to meeting new customers and partners while reinforcing existing relationships with in-person engagements during the five-day trade show.”
According to Chacko, the company is well positioned to cater to customers’ digital requirements across verticals and help them achieve business outcomes with edge solutions.
“We are driving a very bold digital future for customers. We believe our network-as-a-service offering will be a pivotal point in driving customers’ business outcomes. Aruba’s edge to cloud vision offers a compelling proposition that can empower enterprises to achieve their digital agendas,” he concludes.
