Improve IoT performance and scalability by pushing computation to the network, not the cloud.
Red Hat’s Positive Train Control Communication System is an example of their current IoT technology.
Open-source software provider Red Hat is teaming up with machine-to-machine and IoT platform provider Eurotech. Their aim is to simplify the way we integrate and create our IoT designs by creating an IoT solution that bridges operational and information technologies.
IoT has a lot of challenges to overcome from performance latency, reliability, scalability and security. The companies’ solution will try to solve these challenges by sending computations to the network edge instead of the cloud. This will allow for faster data processing, aggregation, integration and routing.
“Working with partners such as Eurotech that truly understand the unique challenges and opportunities presented by industrial IoT has helped to confirm the value that mission critical IT solutions and open-source innovation brings to large-scale IoT deployments,” said Jim Totton, vice president and general manager, Red Hat.
“By collaborating with Eurotech and building the next-generation of IoT architecture on Red Hat solutions while embracing open standards, we seek to better address the enterprise requirements around reliability, stability and security—critical questions that must be answered to foster greater adoption of IoT across the enterprise,” Totton concluded.
The Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system and Eurotech’s Everyware Framework and Cloud technology will be used as the foundation of this new software. The idea is that merging these tools will allow users to manage and support their devices, data centers and cloud layers of the system.
“The companies’ respective competencies and products complement each other – Red Hat on the enterprise IT side, and Eurotech on the operational technology (OT) side with hardware and software,” said Robert Andres, chief marketing officer at Eurotech. “What’s more, Open Source and Java are important pillars in both companies’ strategies, and all these factors ensure a good alignment and many synergies between the parties.”
Both companies have also already had some IoT successes, like Red Hat’s Positive Train Control Communication System.
What is interesting with this announcement is its proximity to Linux Foundation’s recent announcement of their Zephyr operating system for IoT devices. It appears that there will be some overlap between Zephyr and the Red Hat/Eurotech system, but overall the former looks to become an operating system for these IoT devices while the latter looks to be a framework to control them.
As a result, some synergy between the two platforms may be possible, and given Red Hat’s history with Linux this might be a good move on the part of these organizations.
How well do you think this new Red Hat and Eurotech solution will work with the Linux Foundation’s recent announcement of their Zephyr operating system for IoT devices? Comment below.
