ARM acquired data management firm Treasure Data for the creation of a new IoT and big data management solution encompassed in the Arm Pelion IoT platform. Specifically, the company is hoping to utilize Treasure Data’s expertise in aggregating large amounts of both scattered and siloed data to connect and manage IoT devices and information in combination with its own Mbed Cloud and hardware solutions. The goal is to take the massive amounts of data being collected from the IoT across any cloud environment configuration and turn it into actionable data. That includes devices strewn across public or private cloud networks, both on-premise and in hybrid environments covering multiple scenarios for improved flexibility. The connectivity side of the new platform is possible thanks to the company’s acquisition of Stream from earlier this year. Moreover, the tech giant says its Pelion IoT offering features unified billing, bringing every aspect of business IoT under a single platform to lower costs and improve efficiency and integration.
What really sets Pelion apart from the competition, according to ARM, is its ability to provide its device, connectivity, and data management in a horizontal fashion rather than being “vendor-specific.” Moreover, ARM claims that Pelion IoT is capable of managing “any” number or type of device in any cloud configuration. It can also deal with any type of data, whether that’s internal or external. So the platform should be able to push updates to any system layout, work across any application or use cases, and support any connectivity standards across those in any region. That’s no small feat since the amount of data collected and in need of parsing into information is only going to grow. ARM cites an International Data Corporation (IDC) prediction that as many as 163 zettabytes of data will be created or copied over the next seven years. For clarification, that’s over 148 billion terabytes of data, with 1,024 gigabytes per terabyte. That doesn’t provide much detail with regard to how much of that data ARM plans to handle, but it does help to show how big and complex the market for big data and IoT has become.
While the company has already launched the Pelion platform as of today, another key aspect of the acquisition is that the Treasure Data Platform will still be operating under its own branding, meaning Treasure’s teams will continue to work on improving the platform and the technology behind it over time. Current and new customers will hence still be able to use and sign up for those.