There's not much mystery surrounding the two main topics of discussion at this year's Aruba Atmosphere conference in Paris, which kicks off on Tuesday. With a strapline like "The Innovation Edge" and a parent company like HPE, We're in for a solid two days of information on edge computing and the more ephemeral idea of 'innovation'.
If you haven't heard the term 'edge computing' before, let me fill you in. Edge computing is the idea of bringing as much processing power as possible to the edge of the network, i.e. close to or within connected devices. For things like PCs, laptops, tablets and smartphones, it makes sense that the computing power would be within the device. Where edge computing is important, if not vital, is in the IoT, specifically in situations where low latency is of utmost importance.
Speaking of IoT, expect to hear more about this in the context of business particularly and, I would hazard, connected vehicles. Also, the broader idea of Industry 4.0 which includes concepts like fully autonomous manufacturing plants and machines that can predict their own future mechanical failure and arrance preemptive maintenance, as well as cloud and IoT in the business more generally is likely to be on the agenda.
I appreciate some readers may think I've just regurgitated today's latest buzzwords, but underlying any hype and puff are important concepts, including the future of production, the real potential for change offered by the IoT (rather than just novelty) and even the future of work and society, although I'm not expecting too much discussion on the latter. This is, after all, an enterprise tech conference and not a philosophy or economics seminar.
For those of us who follow Aruba and HPE, these themes won't come as a surprise and it's a natural progression from last year's "cloud and mobility" focus. Let's hope there's some of the more deep-dive technical and business aspects mentioned above, rather than skimming the surface; networks are what hold up the internet, IoT and cloud, which themselves underpin the very fabric of our lives today, so I would expect at least this from a networking conference.
Join me on Twitter from 9.00am CET (8.00am BST) for live tweeting from the opening keynote of the event and click here to catch up on all the news as it comes in.
Main image credit: Aruba/HPE
