VMware, the cloud infrastructure and virtualization vendor, is teaming with Adlink Technology, a Taiwanese designer and manufacturer of embedded and edge computing products, to provide mutual customers with a pre-integrated IoT product.
VMware claims that the product will help customers by taking the guesswork out of selecting the hardware and components of a typical IoT architecture.
“VMware and Adlink have a common goal of speeding up IoT adoption for organizations by enabling their solutions to reduce the time and effort required to setup an end-to-end IoT solution and improve the experience,” said Mimi Spier, vice president of IoT at VMware.
“VMware and Adlink together will provide a comprehensive edge infrastructure solution to power IoT analytics platforms that deliver new business insights for mutual customers,” she continued.
Read more: VMware announces new IoT alliances
Integration help
The two companies believe that by working together, they can help customers with the integration aspect of IoT, citing this as a major challenge for enterprises that are looking to exploit IoT, as they have to seek to mix and match a number of offerings and then invest time and effort to maintain them in the longer run.
VMware’s part will be to provide the monitoring, managing and security needs of IoT infrastructure from the edge to the cloud, using its recently announced VMware Pulse IoT Center, which is scheduled for availability later this year.
Meanwhile, Adlink will provide the hardware and edge-related software needed for multi-vendor, multi-standard connectivity, and the network nodes it deems necessary for IoT systems.
Read more: VMware launches Pulse IoT Center
Combining core and edge
According to Rob Bamforth, principal analyst of business communications at IT advisory company Quocirca, the partnership follows a trend of collaborations in the IoT space in which vendors are seeking to combine ‘core’ with ‘edge’.
“An IoT solution – or combination of products and services that meet business needs – will need a combination of ‘core’ or data centre capabilities such as those offered by VMware, as well as ‘edge’ skills – such as robust, rugged and embedded like those offered by Adlink,” he said.
“They may have different mindsets and organisational cultures but they need to collaborate, so forming partnerships is a very valid route,” he added.