By Steven Panovski
UBX Cloud has solved one of the most vexing problems the auto industry currently faces. That’s the good news. The challenge – for both UBX and the industry – is that while most recognize the problem, they don’t realize there are much better solutions than the ones they are currently pouring money into.
I’m referring to the challenge of managing the flood of data that’s being produced for use by autonomous vehicles. This data will mostly be used to establish driving and safety parameters. It’s the information that comes from cameras and sensors while the cars are moving.
The more data a company has, the more competitive it will be in bringing autonomous vehicles to the market. Companies will be able to effectively train their models, bolster their simulations and lessen the cost of manufacturing.
But the cost of having all that data is that it needs to be stored and managed, and auto companies are being put in a terrible position by Big Data companies like Amazon and Microsoft – who charge outrageous amounts for storage and do little to help manage the data. Yet automakers stick with these arrangements because they get hooked on the apparent reliability of the data giants. Without being aware of other options, most feel stuck – and they end up cutting budgets in other areas just so they can pay their Amazon bill.
That’s entirely the wrong priority. We should not be cutting corners in other critical areas to pay a data bill.
At UBX Cloud, we’ve solved this problem.
The Blind Spot No One Saw Coming
If your company wasn’t prepared for this data surge – and most weren’t – you’re now scrambling to manage it with tools and processes that were never built for this scale, which became all the more problematic when we recognized the volume of data was growing so quickly – and becoming increasingly complex at a stunning rate.
Most unprepared companies turned to their software vendors for answers – often getting pushed toward costly cloud solutions that they would have to deploy. These companies find out quickly that the public cloud is essentially utility-based computing, which means you pay per what you use. As the volume of their data explodes, the cost reality becomes eye-popping.
All the more so because leaning on Amazon or Microsoft cloud services means discovering quickly that those providers sell capacity, not data management.
The results? Sky-high bills, and teams left to do the heavy lifting themselves. But the costs are measured in more than dollars as well. They’re also measured in lost trust and lost time-to-market.
So what next? Data needs managing. It’s complex. It can’t be divided easily. Think about the full chain for a moment: Getting data off the vehicle, into an ingest center and into your cloud environment. If any part of that pipeline falters, you’re left with delays, gaps in compliance and frustrated teams still trying to piece it together. Companies are quickly finding this out when they get billed for millions of dollars and they’re still having to manage all of the data themselves.
So let me tell you how we solved this problem.
At UBX Cloud, we approached this differently. We built a solution tailored to the automotive industry, based on our expertise for managing backups.
How UBX Cloud Solved This Crisis
We have established a business relationship with two exceptional partners – Pure Storage and Zadara Storage. They give us all the capacity and speed the industry needs.
We have also partnered with a company in the auto supplier community that handles the logistics of actually getting the data trays to the storage facilities. And thanks to the full array of our partnerships, we now have access to storage facilities to serve both ends of the U.S. – one in Detroit and one in Denver.
Our logistics partner gets the data trays to the ingest centers, and we handle the data management. Our clients don’t have to do that – unless they choose to. (We have multiple plans tailored for you.)
The cost of this for client companies is so much lower than what they’re paying now, some are using the savings to bolster other critical areas of their operations.
No longer do you need to rely on providers who aren’t data people, who can’t get the data to the proper locations quickly, and who don’t know what to do (or who to call) when they have problems managing it – which is inevitable.
The partnerships we have work exceptionally well for us, our partners and our clients because each company has the expertise and capacity to make it work.
We know how to manage the data – even when it’s this complex.
Our storage partners have the capacity and the protocols to keep everything secure and flowing.
Our logistics partner is quick, precise and trusted in the industry.
It works. And it’s saving automotive companies from getting buried in data management tasks and/or getting socked with multimillion-dollar cloud storage costs.
The Road Ahead
The data being generated for autonomous vehicles will only multiply. Automotive companies cannot afford inefficiency or runaway costs.
UBX Cloud has already solved this problem. We have the partners, the capacity and the expertise.
It’s time for the automotive industry to stop being overwhelmed and start gaining control.
It’s time for the rest of the industry to benefit.