One of the earliest impacts of internet-of-things (IoT) will be felt in the region’s facilities management sector, according to UAE-based building solutions provider Energy Solutions Group International (ESGI).

ESGI has recently completed a project to monitor some 50,000 control points 24/7 at a major mall from a central command and control facility located in Dubai. The devices being monitored include closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, lighting systems, and car park sensors all the way to the mall’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system.

ESGI’s model provides a new approach in terms of deploying a building management system (BMS) by softening the initial economic investment required in deploying such a system, which should help in reducing energy consumption and in improving efficiencies and security of various assets over time.

In the absence of a cloud-based infrastructure, clients - primarily facility management companies – are usually required to purchase hardware and software licenses upfront. This means the client is usually locked down with just one [BMS] technology provider limiting future options, explains Andrew Ward, chief operating officer at ESGI.

ESGI is also approaching the UAE market with a partner that is relatively new to the BMS market: Dell.

Dell’s Edge Gateway is a sensor data aggregator, which means it collects data from sensor-driven devices such as CCTVs, translates between sensor protocols, and processes these data before sending it to the cloud or to a remote control and command centre, such as the one ESGI has built.

“Obviously, we wouldn’t be in this business if Michael Dell did not think it has the potential to become a billion-dollar business for the company,” Joyce Mullen, Dell’s vice president for global alliances, told MEED.

Michael Dell founded the company named after him in 1984 and pioneered selling computers over the internet in 1996. Dell overtook Compaq as the world’s number one PC provider five years later but the company has experienced mixed fortunes in recent years that began with a tax non-disclosure cased file by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2010.

The company recently acquired EMC, a major storage solutions provider, to bolster its strategy as a cloud services provider.

Mullen was in Dubai recently to meet with partners and obtain a closer understanding of their business in the region. “The Dell Gateway product and our partnership with companies such as ESGI are core to our new focus as an essential infrastructure provider,” Mullen explained. The EMC acquisition complements Dell’s “edge” products such as PCs and servers with core “infrastructure-type” technologies such as cloud services.

“It used to be that these types of solutions entail rough economics,” Mullen said, referring to the required capital outlay in deploying cloud-based solutions such as those offered by ESGI. Mullen said putting Dell’s global support and supply chain behind their partners soften the direct capitalisation required by many companies, including mall and other building operators, in their digital transformation process.

Dell’s Gateway product does not come with any software, which means it requires a framework software such as those provided by Tridium’s Niagara AX to operate as an IoT gateway or sensor data aggregator. “It can, with the use of these types of software, take the place of a traditional building management system (BMS),” ESGI’s Ward added.