What’s the state of technology around internet of things-connected devices? Some say the jumble of piece parts, complexity, and lack of end-to-end solutions can best be defined as an “absolute disaster.” Maybe a company that has put in some work lately smoothing hybrid cloud complexity can spread some of that grease to the edge. Maybe that company is VMware Inc.

Spier spoke with Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Lisa Martin (@LuccaZara), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the VMworld conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. They discussed VMware’s and parent company Dell Technologies Inc.’s efforts to simplify the IoT edge. (* Disclosure below.)

Varying it up as IoT moves up the stack

VMware’s just-announced edge portfolio of solutions slingshots the company’s hyperconverged technology as a service to far-flung edge devices. The IoT edge requires a robust bunch of ecosystem partners to pool tech together, Spier explained. VMware edge solutions combine those technologies to provide a software-defined, fully-supported, end-to-end approach to edge computing.

It offers the “same infrastructure, same operational model as the hybrid cloud model, but at the edge with the choice of the application development tools,” Spier stated.

Businesses should not rush into IoT just because it’s trending in techland lately, according to Spier. It’s complicated, and they need to bring their end goals into sharp focus before they venture into it. “They shouldn’t do IoT just to do IoT. They need to do what’s right for their business,” she said.

Having a solution that draws on an ecosystem of partners for smooth sailing from the core to the cloud is one way to make it easier. VMware and Dell have built solutions that allow customers to choose what application development tools they use on top of their infrastructure.

“They might want Greengrass from Amazon; they might want Azure; they might want IoT Watson,” she said.

VMware and Dell are working with independent software vendors to develop IoT products for specific industry use cases to further its plug-and-play IoT mission. “We have 15 different partners in our zone right now, really showing what they can do across six different industrie,” Spier concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the VMworld conference. (* Disclosure: VMware Inc. sponsored coverage of VMworld, and some segments on SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE are sponsored. Sponsors have no editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE