BlueStar, a leading global distributor of Mobility, IoT and AI-based solutions, has signed a business development agreement with Zeblok Computational Inc. to promote the Zeblok Ai-MicroCloud® to the BlueStar global network of Value Added Resellers (VARS). The Ai-MicroCloud® is a turnkey, cloud native AI Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) that simplifies and streamlines the development, deployment and optimization of artificial intelligence applications to the edge. BlueStar VARS can share information with their customers on ready to deploy, "In-a-Box® AI Solutions" with any mix of ISVs and servers for demanding AI workloads challenging their customers.
Developers using AI algorithms such as computer vision, time-series, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X), need AI inferencing at the edge to process large amounts of data closer to where data is used for better application performance and lower latency. Businesses benefitting from Zeblok integrated solutions include Cloud Service Providers (CSP), Communication Services Providers (CoSP), Managed Service Providers (MSP), edge data center operators, OEMs, and ISVs serving clients in industries such as telecommunications, retail, manufacturing, city construction, connected vehicles, gaming, and more.
Traditional deployment of edge solutions is manual and slow, resulting in rising costs and resource utilization (eg., cloud compute, GPU cycles), without comparable benefit. The Ai-MicroCloud® is a single, integrated environment for edge deployments that can shave days, if not weeks, off application development (AppDev), freeing up resources for ML Ops fine-tuning, model optimization or incremental training for new vocabularies. Edge users can deploy on any topology from Cloud to Edge, including public cloud, hybrid cloud, bare metal servers, and scale to thousands of edge hubs and satellite devices.
BlueStar Value Added Resellers can accelerate customer time to value with commercially ready-to-deploy In-a-Box® AI solutions for common use-cases in Retail, Industry 4.0, and Smart Cities. The Ai-MicroCloud® In-a-Box® AI solutions are certified on Advantech and Supermicro servers, many popular AI tools and ISVs, with more certifications coming soon.
Each In-a-Box® AI solution includes an Ai-AppStore, where customers can curate any ML Ops AI tool and ISV application with included automation tools and simplified workflows. An Ai-AppStore allows on-demand access to multi-class AI assets as microservices and industry standard APIs. These features future-proof investments because customers can mix and match any ISV application with any hardware, CPU and GPU to optimize their models and deploy Ai inference engines to any edge environment.
With out of the box support for Intel® OpenVINO™ Toolkit for model optimization, and Intel® oneAPI Deep Neural Network Library (oneDNN), developers optimize workloads faster, and at much lower total cost. For example, after a computer vision application is deployed, developers go to the Ai-AppStore to access time-series or NLP algorithms, then easily develop, optimize and deploy new applications using the same end-to-end lifecycle management on the same infrastructure.
"We are excited to kick off a business development relationship with Zeblok. It's the start of a unique AI offering available to BlueStar customers.," said Dean Reverman, Vice President of Marketing at BlueStar, "Zeblok's Ai-MicroCloud® with the Ai-AppStore will enable BlueStar VARs to differentiate their business offerings by addressing deployment problems in a cost-effective and simplified manner. Bundled with world class BlueStar OEM server, storage, and networking products, the Zeblok solution can be a game changer for our VARs."
"Our channel partners are asking for solutions that enabling new business opportunities, so they can call on new parts of their customer's organization," said Mike Buyington, Vice President of Sales at BlueStar. "The Zeblok Ai-MicroCloud® is the door opener to new business opportunities that can lead to higher value added sales opportunities. BlueStar VARS can present a fully managed, easy to deliver solution, and that will grow their business".
"We are excited to develop business with BlueStar because of their reputation for offering world class products and solutions through their large network Value Added Resellers," said Mouli Narayanan, founder and CEO of Zeblok Computational. "Edge-Ai is an ecosystem play, and BlueStar's diverse offerings of hardware and software, means the VAR channel can deliver innovative solutions that meet the needs of businesses across industries and use cases. We look forward to helping BlueStar VARS reach new markets and achieve greater business success!"
Zeblok Computational will attend #Vartech2022 in Booth 522A to showcase Zeblok's Ai-MicroCloud® to the BlueStar VAR network.