Hexagon maps the globe with Qumulo’s Cloud Data Platform
Powers massive-scale industry autonomy and sustainability projects
There’s nothing more powerful than hearing a customer share how the right data at the right scale can make a significant business impact for them and their clients. During Qumulo’s recent employee event in
Seattle, Hexagon’s President of Geospatial Content Solutions, John Welter, gave a fascinating overview of how Qumulo has helped their company over the years. As a $4.3 billion global leader in digital
reality solutions, Hexagon combines sensor, software and autonomous technologies that are the underpinning to many industries and businesses working to be more productive, efficient, and profitable. He emphasized how critical IT solutions like theirs, in concert with Qumulo’s File Data Platform, support a smart digital reality that helps their clients test a wide variety of applications in a virtual environment.
Creating a digital twin of the world to support industry autonomy
From construction to city services, and mining or federal government agencies, Hexagon captures reality by scanning environments on the ground or even below the water’s surface—a city, building, roads, infrastructure assets, indoor spaces—to see what’s important. They leverage the captured data to inform smart analytics, interpretations, and industry action.
Our HxGN Content Program—the largest library of high-quality aerial imagery, elevation data, 3D models and analytics covering North America and Western Europe–has captured more than 27 million square kilometers in the last 8 years and is storing 4 petabytes of final product on the cloud. There’s a lot riding on it and we need to choose the right IT partner.
Hexagon’s geospatial data library has grown from 150 gigabytes captured in the field per day and stored in 2002 to 160 terabytes now stored, processed, and quickly distributed to customers daily. “It’s two orders of magnitude that require scale. And on our sensor roadmap, the next sensor will have 40 percent more data without faster cycles or higher resolution,” added Welter. Sometimes, it is ingested and turned around for one of the company’s top customers in as few as three days.
Hexagon customers, including government agencies, will continue to push for more, faster data streams and mission-critical insights. Why? They are confronted with mounting pressure on urban planning, stemming from smart city applications, and when facing unexpected challenges such as city- and state-wide emergencies, noise and light pollution, or rapidly growing populations. Hexagon is ready to address these demands, unforeseen problems, and more, because Qumulo and other partners deliver IT infrastructure that gives choice, flexibility, and reliability when handling the unstructured data and changing points of reference.
The Qumulo partnership has “never felt transactional,” concluded Welter. Hexagon can rely on Qumulo’s round-the-clock support, storage choices (e.g., on-premise, cloud, or hybrid), and enhanced capabilities to achieve more productivity, creative business models, and engagement with communities or customers as solutions are brought to market and the company grows in the future.
Business Impact
- Streamlined storage: With Qumulo storing five petabytes and growing data from Hexagon,
especially mission-critical government data often needed in 72 hours or less, they streamlined
workflows and decreased field-to-product time. Four petabytes of final data product eventually reside in the cloud as a result of Qumulo also running on Amazon Web Services (AWS). - Data proliferation and accuracy: With Qumulo, Hexagon can scale its storage to support abundant,
high-resolution data points under management. Countrywide data sets are available at 15 cm and 30 cm resolutions in the U.S. and at 12.5 cm and 30 cm resolutions in Europe. For cities, high-definition data sets are captured at 5 cm resolution for images alongside high-density LiDAR point clouds, providing the highest positional accuracy and temporal consistency. - Optimized revenue and customer savings: Qumulo helps Hexagon better manage its data and storage environment, while supporting storage purchases in an OPEX versus CAPEX way that impacts demand-driven consumption and cost-saving for customers, plus recurring revenue for Hexagon.
Industry:
Software & IT Services
Use Case:
Cloud-based geospatial data that turns complex data about people, places, and assets into meaningful information and capabilities for better, faster decision-making in public safety, defense, transportation, government, and physical security
Deployment:
CNQ on AWS
Location:
Global, HQ in Sweden
Company Overview:
Hexagon transforms complex geospatial data about people, places, and assets into actionable information and capabilities, enabling better, faster decision-making in public safety, defense, transportation, government, and physical security. They experienced a data scaling and performance issue with their massive dataset.
Why Qumulo:
- Limitless scale
- Seamless integration into existing pipeline
- Lower cost and higher performance than alternatives
- OPEX versus CAPEX
Results:
- Streamlined workflows
- Decreased field-to-product time
- Scaled its storage to support more abundant, higher-resolution data points
- One billion images streamed per month