What is our primary use case?
We currently make technology that uses the Intel VPU, the Movidius chipset. We run OpenVINO on it.
It's for Edge IoT. We make the hardware and we cater to customers who are looking for Edge IoT solutions, and the product is really for edge processing or video co-processing for machine vision. We distribute that data on the customer's network using our Edge solution, which is based on DDS, distributed data system. Basically, we use it for machine vision applications.
What is most valuable?
The solution's ability to stream data directly from camera inputs is the most valuable aspect for us.
It's tailored to the Movidius chipset, which makes it a nice package. You don't have to run it on the Movidius. It runs on X86, however, we'd like to use it with our Movidius based co-processor.
The ease of integration is fantastic. The option to run it just on X86 or X86 plus an Intel CPU is great.
It's an open-source solution.
The initial setup is quite simple.
What needs improvement?
Generally, when you deploy edge products, it's really about latency. It's about getting that camera input, being able to process it, extracting the information you need, and getting the solution back to the person who made the request. Although I'm not necessarily saying its latency or accuracy is bad, it's always something that can be improved upon. By focusing on improving these areas, they can make the overall solution even better.
At this point, the product could probably just use a greater integration with more machine learning model tools. However, that's not advice from experience per se. That's always just helpful in general. To be able to incorporate more models into the product makes it stronger. Therefore, to be clear, it's not coming from a point of a current deficiency. It's just a general comment.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've used the solution for a while now. We've used it over the course of the last 12 months as well. My personal experience has been a bit more limited and I would say that I've been using it for the last eight or so months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is quite stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability seems to be pretty good. We've had good feedback on it. Our engineers seem to like it, and, for me as a kind of an end-user, it seems to be working fine.
How are customer service and support?
As gold partners with Intel, we do get pretty good support. I do get feedback from them. I have key contacts that I can reach out to directly, and then they're fairly responsive. We've been quite satisfied so far.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup, for me at least, was pretty easy and straightforward. It is integrated with our binary image for our platform, so it already comes with it. The engineers already integrated it with our hardware solution and it comes to me as a binary that I install. It makes everything very simple. I wouldn't describe the setup as complex.
What was our ROI?
That's going to be really on our customers. We're not using it as a revenue generation tool. We use it as a development enhancement and then we sell our solutions to the end customer. The ROI is really a question for the end-user, on how they can realize their initial investment back.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
This solution is made available as an open-source product.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I have done a cursory bit of research into the product against a few other options.
What other advice do I have?
I'm not exactly sure which version of the solution we're using. I'm assuming it's fairly current as we're deploying our Edge IoT platform using it.
While the solution is deployed on-premise, but we have the availability to hook into Amazon web services and Microsoft Azure.
OpenVINO's part of Intel's framework and we're a gold partner with Intel.
I would say it's a very good vision processing unit. It's a very good VPU if you're using Intel type of architectures as a co-processor. I have only really had experience with Intel with any OpenVINO based on the Movidius and therefore I'd like to get more hands-on time with others. However, generally, it's a good platform. It's worth exploring and can handle multiple camera streams, and it's straightforward to use. A company would benefit from trying it out.
In general, I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.