Nokia is to integrate Microsoft’s Azure Arc cloud management platform into its MX Industrial Edge (MXIE) solution for mission-critical Industry 4.0 environments. The tie-up will afford customers buying private wireless and edge computing from Nokia a way to also manage Azure workloads, in any cloud and edge combination, in a single management plane, and to tap into the broader Azure system for their digital OT activities.
The Finnish vendor said the initiative gives customers “access to the full Azure ecosystem offering on MXIE” via compute resources anywhere on the cloud-edge continuum, between centralised, regional and local, and on-site compute stores. Azure Arc provides expanded support to non-Azure compute resources, too, including to virtual machines on Amazon EC2, Google Compute Engine, and VMware vSphere.
MXIE, offered on subscription as an on-site Industry 4.0 platform, is pitched squarely at the manufacturing, energy, and logistics sectors, and all hard-nosed industrial sub-categories within, and bundles Nokia’s DAC-branded private LTE and 5G offer as an essential part of the proposition. Nokia said the MXIE/Azure combo brings Microsoft’s AI and IoT software pyrotechnics directly into a high-grade digital OT architecture.
Stephan Litjens, vice president of Nokia’s enterprise solutions division, said: “We have built a leadership position with our private wireless networks solution and MXIE platform in large part by working with valued partners. Our extended collaboration with Microsoft will enable and enhance the performance of Industry 4.0 mission critical applications allowing our customers to tap into Microsoft Azure Arc in the cloud and on the customer premise’s edge.”
Keith Sutton, chief technology officer for Microsoft’s ‘telco service line’, said: “Nokia is an established leader in fully integrated industrial edge and private wireless solutions to provide features and automated management tools that accelerate OT digitalization. With Microsoft Azure Arc, a wide ecosystem of applications, and our long standing work with Nokia, we can provide AI-powered insights and identify solutions to workflow issues for mission critical Industry 4.0 applications running at the edge.”
