The Week in Technology (TWiT)

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Embue – A Case Study in Applied Analytics

Steve McDowell and I traveled to the Boston area this week to chat with some partners and old friends. One of those stops on our visit was to Worcester (practice pronouncing here) to meet with the folks at Embue. Embue is one of the more exciting companies I've run across in a while. It has delivered an example of using IIoT, edge computing, and cloud-based analytics for real-world relevance.

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Embue designed an intelligent building platform with measurable energy savings and predictive and corrective actions. Maybe a different way of saying this is that the company has built a great analytics engine that is being used to drive the concept of intelligent buildings.

Some of the obvious benefits are, well, obvious—lower heating and cooling costs, extended life of those HVAC systems that support your building, and the like. But there's more. How about triggering alerts when conditions are ripe for mold? Or warning building superintendents of when pipes could be in danger of bursting? Finally, what if a platform could look back through history and forecast weather and temperatures accurately, allowing building managers to adjust heating and cooling better to accommodate??

You may believe this is already happening through some systems. And some of the bigger players claim to deliver similar benefits. At a much higher price point. Without the depth of analytics. And without the simplicity and mobility that a plant manager/building supervisor or property manager requires. Larry Genovesi, Embue CTO and cofounder, said something that I found so profoundly obvious a few times – you can't solve a problem without knowing what questions to ask. And this is the notion of applied analytics. Maybe relevant analytics is better. ?

Keep an eye on this company – it is on to something. And Larry has already done the IPO thing a couple of times.

As a disclaimer – Steve and I worked for Larry at Network Engines (NEI) during the dot-com era. NEI has the distinction of designing and building the first one rack unit (1U) Intel-based server. After the folks at Intel told us it couldn't be done. You're welcome, IBM. And Compaq (now HPE), and Dell. And world.

Edge computing – have we defined it yet?

Steve and I also met with two of the edge computing leads at Stratus this week – Jason Anderson and Stephen Greene. Remember Stratus? The leaders of fault-tolerant systems powering banks and other mission-critical entities for decades? Yeah – its doing cool stuff in edge computing now. If you run an industrial edge environment and are looking to deploy hands-free compute platforms to run your edge apps – check out the ztC Edge platform. Factory floors, pharma production lines, Food and Beverage – you name the vertical, and chances are Stratus has a customer using its technology.

Anyway, Steve and I were chatting with Jason and Stephen, and what constitutes an edge environment was discussed. There's the telco edge, the industrial edge, the retail edge, the "used to be ROBO but now it's edge" edge. And each of these has multiple subcategories. Take industrial – this alone could be further broken down into dozens of industries, each with its own unique set of requirements and regulatory concerns.

So, how does the server/infrastructure vendor design and deliver platforms to meet the specific needs of each of these markets? And how do these vendors activate the industry-specific ISVs and SIs that deploy solutions? Is it possible?

My two cents – the edge market is very fractured. The industrial edge (OT-led – often called the "dirty edge") is further fractured along industry and region. Stratus has developed a smart approach to finding and activating partners in these different verticals and regions. And this is critical to success.

Is it me, or is silicon really exciting?

Remember the days when Intel was the only option in the datacenter? Just a few short years later, the world looks different.

AMD has not only re-entered the market, but it's also the performance leader, has gained substantial share in cloud & HPC, and is gaining velocity in the enterprise. Arm has also gained a significant stake in the cloud as AWS has widely deployed Graviton and Ampere is now publicly available in Azure and Oracle Cloud.

On top of this, GPUs, DPUs, TPUs, ASICs, and FPGAs are now widely deployed for network offload, database acceleration, machine learning, security, and other functions. This silicon-based acceleration is the driver of many strategic acquisitions that Intel and AMD have made over the last couple of years. And this silicon-based acceleration has made NVIDIA a force to be reckoned with.

While software has consistently outpaced hardware in terms of innovation, hardware is starting to catch up. But that hardware innovation begins at the chip level – and it is refreshing to see a renaissance of sorts in terms of unleashing the power of silicon.

I'm really curious to hear and see what Intel has to say at its analyst event in May. While its main competition is the tech industry's darling, Intel is still *the* player in the silicon game. And I'm sure a lot is going on behind the scenes in Santa Clara, Hillsboro, and elsewhere.

Ampere IPO – a good move?

Speaking of excitement in the silicon market - did you see that Ampere filed its S-1 as it prepares to go public this year? MI&S has covered Ampere in the past and the moves it has been making in the cloud – specifically around Oracle Cloud, Azure, and Alibaba cloud. While the influx of cash will surely be welcomed as the company continues to develop a product portfolio (and roadmap) to meet the needs of the rich cloud computing market, I wonder if there will be added pressure to try and establish a presence in the enterprise as well.

There has been a lot of posting on this over the last couple of days. My take is pretty simple - there is a heck of a lot of cloud business to be had before focusing on the enterprise. And, if Ampere is successful enough in its cloud business, the barriers to enterprise adoption will be softened.

Now the only question is around who gets on the friends and family list.

Conference season – are we back in person? Kind of?

Raise your hand if you are going to Dell Tech World, IBM Think, HPE Discover, Cisco Live, VMWorld, or other tech conferences. It seems that the conference season is reverting from virtual back to in-person. The question is – who is going?

Here's a bigger question. As an IT professional, do you want to track these conferences more closely even if you can't attend? I don't mean signing up for a bunch of virtual sessions and then tuning out five minutes after each session starts because of an important email hitting your inbox or a cardinal settling on a branch outside your window. Would it be interesting to have quick hits and daily overviews of these conferences in a less scripted way?

Let me know your thoughts – Steve and I are working through some concepts…