EMC and Vodafone to build industrial IoT platform

Internet of Things

Vodafone and EMC have invested €2 million (£1.4 million) into an IoT platform to help enterprises build and test industrial applications.

Infinite, as the platform will be known, is designed for large-scale applications such as manufacturing, machinery, household appliances and fleet management. The companies will also encourage healthcare and higher education establishments to test their devices and technologies on the platform.

It will be hosted across three datacentres in Ireland - one owned by Vodafone, another by EMC and a third by local cloud provider Cork Internet eXchange (CIX).

“EMC Federation is leading an industrial partnership encompassing rich data and Internet of Things. The digital age’s IT transformation – cloud, big data, social, mobile and Internet of Things, is continuously and increasingly changing the way we live and work,” said Orna Berry, corporate vice president innovation, EMC Centres of Excellences (CoE).

“EMC Federation and Ireland’s CoE are excited to take a dynamic and influential part in this important eventuation, with the creation of the Infinite innovative IoT platform.”

The project has been approved for use by cloud standards group Industrial Internet Consortium, which comprises a wide range of companies in the tech space, with the aim of streamlining interoperability across IoT devices and systems.

Richard Soley, executive director of the Industrial Internet Consortium, said: "Infinite will prove to be a valuable Industrial Internet testbed for a countless number of industries including smart cities and healthcare. As the need for more dynamic systems continues to grow, organisations will turn to utilising mobile networks to connect to virtual system.

“This testbed is going to prove the viability of doing all this with systems that require the utmost security – such as those used by hospitals and emergency medical services.”

Clare Hopping
Freelance writer

Clare is the founder of Blue Cactus Digital, a digital marketing company that helps ethical and sustainability-focused businesses grow their customer base.

Prior to becoming a marketer, Clare was a journalist, working at a range of mobile device-focused outlets including Know Your Mobile before moving into freelance life.

As a freelance writer, she drew on her expertise in mobility to write features and guides for ITPro, as well as regularly writing news stories on a wide range of topics.