VODAFONE SPAIN PRESENTS “VODAFONE CONNECTED CITY”, ITS SERVICE OFFERING FOR SMART CITIES
Vodafone Spain announced a strategy to provide its customers intelligent services that promote efficiency initiative, management and livability of cities. This new proposal, called “Vodafone Connected City” offers the possibility of developing solutions for public administrations and private companies.
IBM is the company responsible for providing the technology infrastructure hardware, software and services necessary for the implementation of this initiative, which seek to boost the efficiency of Spanish cities in different areas: mobility, building design, security and emergency, energy, water, health -analytical medical data or monitoring crónicos- sick, education, tourism and smart trade, among others.
This new business will be operated inthe new Control Centre and Smart Development that will be launched in the coming weeks in Seville, under the agreement signed in September 2014 by Vodafone Spain and the Junta de Andalucía, whereby the operator will invest more than 243 million euros over the next two years to deploy telecommunications infrastructure, promote the creation of technological business network, develop projects that help overcome cultural and educational barriers and implement initiatives in strategic growth sectors in the region . This center will put Andalusia and worldwide reference in the operation and development of Big Data solutions and Smart.
Thanks to the replicability of the solutions, the platform and ecosystem generated by this new center, access to Smart City advanced solutions to all types of councils and municipalities throughout the country, both in large cities and in those size is allowed medium (y150.000 20,000 inhabitants) who can not make large investments usually required for such projects.
Vicente Fernandez, Secretary General of Innovation, Industry and Energy of the Andalusian commented: “Thanks to initiatives like this, framed in agreement with the Andalusian Vodafone, are convinced that new employment prospects for young Andalusians open to the business sector, and to undertake projects that create more jobs, improve our economic fabric and competitiveness of our businesses. “
“The business line presented today will allow any municipality, regardless of size can access the SMART services immediately without large investments and maximum flexibility ycontribuirá to enable citizens to have better public services in areas such as education and health, among others, “said Antonio Fernandez, Director of Vodafone Spain in Andalusia. “Furthermore, this project will place Andalusia and Spain as a world leader in Big Data and Smart implementing sustainable solutions, as it will drive innovation, encourage the creation of ICT companies and create jobs linked to analytical data”.
“IBM has developed smart city projects in over 800 cities worldwide. Integration and analysis of data through the efficient use of technology to manage the city smarter and improve the quality of life of citizens. We believe that this agreement with Vodafone will make any significant progress in the implementation of new models of smart cities in Spain, “said Antonio Pires, head of SmarterCities in IBM Spain, Portugal, Greece and Israel.
The key technology in the project
This project is implemented with the provision of specific components of the latest generation of IBM in the area of ??smart cities that make up the intelligent technology platform Vodafone (called TORO, Technologies for Optimized Operation Resources, and is the technological base project “Vodafone Connected City”.
The heart of the hardware infrastructure is an IBM zEnterprise BC12 with Linux, which supports the production environment from where service will give end customers in Cloud mode. The solution includes management software necessary to provide the service in Cloud mode, with functions of monitoring performance, availability and service management.
One of the main components of the platform is the Intelligent Operations Center (IOC), which allows you to monitor and manage systems and services City smarter through a single, centralized view of operations and strong analytical capacity . Other key components are: the tool to manage the assets of the city (Maximo) software to integrate any data source (Information Server) and allows the creation of mobile applications focused on the citizen and the best management City (MobileFirst). Finally, IBM provides services for the operation of the technological platform of Vodafone.
Meanwhile, Vodafone contributes his services last generation mobile communications, and Global Data Services Platform (GDSP), which will enable the connection of thousands of intelligent sensors with Vodafone Connected City.
