Dell Technologies introduces another five-episode Work from Anywhere Tech Talk Series that tackles the latest Tech Trends in South Africa, and the globe.

The series — watch the first episode by clicking play in the video above — looks at the products that can be used to digitise businesses in the rapidly changing market conditions in which they find themselves. The series takes viewers through an informative journey looking at how organisations can take advantage of market conditions to benefit of themselves and their customers.

Join Jonathan Ryall, client solutions field product manager at Dell Technologies South Africa, in the first episode of the series as he delves into “The Intelligent Edge” with Tony Bartlett, director of data centre compute at Dell Technologies South Africa. The pair discuss how organisations, across industries, are looking to the “edge” to improve agility and customer experiences.

But what exactly is the “intelligent edge” and what sort of benefits can it bring to organisations who are increasingly needing to be agile to adapt, and ultimately survive?

Bartlett explains that the edge is essentially where business happens or transacts, so if you think of a retailer, that is the shop floor, if you think of a factory, the edge is the factory floor. A more complex example could be a mine, where the edge could be underground, where the actual mining is taking place.

Insights

Looking to what the “intelligent edge” is and how it can be used to transform business is where technology comes into play, where the physical and digital world intersect. Bartlett explains that the intelligent edge is where data is analysed at the edge location (where the data is generated, like the shop floor, for example) and “solutions” are developed at the site where the data is generated.

The data that is generated can be analysed to obtain insights, new market opportunities and innovative ideas to start making the right decisions in near real time.

So, what types of data should be analysed at the edge and what types of data should be analysed in a traditional data centre? Bartlett explains that organisations need to understand what kind of data is being generated. He also says that in future, most data will not be analysed in a data centre, but rather at the edge, due to reduced latency and the need for quick data analytics. This can result in cost reductions as well as mitigate business risk. He delves into more practical examples about how this could play out where quick response times are an imperative.

With change being a constant, businesses need to operate at the edge where they can “generate actionable insights, digitise their business processes and even transform their customer experiences”.

Ryall then takes viewers through the Optiplex Ultra Desktop, the world’s most compatible, fully modular, zero-footprint desktop solution that offers swappable elements for ultimate flexibility and performance.

Reach out to Dell Technologies South Africa on @DellTechZA (Facebook and Twitter) or delltechnologies.com.