VMware, SAP Team Up to Accelerate and Streamline Enterprise IoT Initiatives

VMware, Inc. announced a collaboration with SAP, aiming to create an integrated Internet of Things (IoT) solution that supports the implementation and management of IoT use cases across devices, infrastructure, edge, cloud and application domains. The goal is to enable fast deployment, scalability and on-schedule execution of IoT projects. 

In a 2016 study conducted by IDG Research Services on IoT, 47 percent of companies considered technological expertise as an important factor when selecting an IoT vendor.(1) This is especially important, because enterprises spend a lot of time in vendor selection and integration while implementing IoT use cases.

Collaborating on an Enterprise IoT-Ready Architecture

An enterprise IoT-ready architecture consists of an infrastructure plane and application plane. The infrastructure layer refers to the IoT infrastructure itself along with the capabilities to manage and secure it, whereas the application plane analyzes insight-rich data from connected things to drive business decisions and processes.

 VMware is a leader in infrastructure and device management software. With its family of VMware Pulse IoT solutions, VMware will offer enterprises a consistent infrastructure plane for all their IoT projects and a management solution to securely onboard, configure and monitor ‘things’ on an ongoing basis along with support for on-premises capabilities. The recently announced VMware Pulse IoT Center will help simplify IoT complexity by managing all ‘things’ as one, improve the reliability and security of IoT infrastructure through accurate and real-time visibility of ‘thing’ health, and help accelerate the ROI of IoT use cases by streamlining how IoT projects are deployed and scaled. VMware Pulse IoT Center is expected to become available in calendar 2017.

SAP is a recognized leader in business and enterprise applications and analytics. SAP Leonardo IoT solutions are built on the agile and innovative SAP Cloud Platform, and connect people, processes and things. SAP Leonardo is a digital innovation system that helps companies transform systems that manage workflows or processes into systems of intelligence by integrating technologies like IoT, artificial intelligence, machine learning and analytics to bridge the gap between operations and information technology.

Through their collaboration and testing, VMware and SAP plan to offer mutual customers:

·         Enterprise IT Approved – Both VMware and SAP are trusted brands and have an understanding of how to help organizations recognize real gains from IoT technology.

·         OT–IT Integration – SAP provides real-time visibility by converging time-series device data with business transactional data, while VMware will enable IT to have visibility and control of the IoT use case from the infrastructure operational point of view.

·         Holistic Analytics – With access to both operational and business analytics, enterprises will be better able to harness the wealth of information unearthed from their IoT deployments as well as view and track the health of the IoT infrastructure itself.

·         Shorter Time to Value ­– Both companies are working together to develop a pre-integrated, pre-tested solution that aims to enable quick deployments while providing the necessary security and management capabilities for IoT architecture across gateways, micro data centers and the cloud to drastically help speed up time to value.

“VMware and SAP have a long and rich history of working together to empower our mutual customers to transform their businesses with solutions that help to innovate, simplify and move toward a software-defined enterprise architecture,” said Mimi Spier, vice president, Internet of Things, VMware. “Today, we extend that relationship with our collaboration to apply our know-how to helping customers successfully deploy and operate their IoT solutions spanning infrastructure to applications and analytics.”

“Companies win when they can make intelligent real-time decisions at the edge; SAP Leonardo supports that bold innovation,” said Nils Herzberg, senior vice president, global head, IoT Go-to-Market & Strategic Partnerships for SAP. “As customers start to implement, one obstacle to realizing that vision is tackling infrastructure lifecycle and management outside of the traditional data center. By working with VMware, we are helping mutual customers to create innovative gains while supporting a reliable, maintainable and secure IT platform.”