Nokia bolstered its enterprise connection-focused MX Industrial Edge (MXIE) platform with four new applications designed to allow users to better collect, analyze and secure information. The applications also take advantage of a recent private network partnership extension with Kyndryl.

The new applications include Litmus Edge, which is an industrial IoT edge product providing a real-time view using unified data collection, integration, analytics and application insight for predictive maintenance and system monitoring. Nokia noted this could also support the creation and management of digital twin models.

There is also a new Crosser Node that collects, connects, integrates and analyzes data in motion across a network. This can provide live loops of streaming data between connected devices and the cloud to support system monitoring and digital twins.

The third application is Atos Computer Vision that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to bolster applications in manufacturing environments. It uses deep learning insight to detect defects, anomalies or incorrect configurations.

The last new application is the Palo Alto Networks Next-Gen Firewall. This is a virtualized version of the Palo Alto Networks product that can operate in an enterprise without the need for specific physical hardware. It includes intrusion detection and prevention, deep packet inspection and distributed denial of service protection.

Chad Gibbons, VP of strategic alliances at Nokia, explained in an email to SDxCentral that this last application also takes advantage of Nokia’s recent partnership extension with Kyndryl. That extension included a tie-up with Palo Alto Networks to launch a joint lab in Raleigh, North Carolina, to integrate a multi-factor, zero-trust security model into the private wireless package.

Paul Savill, global practice leader for network and edge at Kyndryl, explained at that time this allows for Kyndryl and Nokia to certify some of Palo Alto Networks’ security platforms into the joint offering.

“We have customers that have an interest in Palo Alto technology and using their firewalls as we work it into the integrated solutions that connect the [MX Industrial Edge] compute that Nokia has got and the private wireless technology Nokia’s got as they interface it with their LAN environments and their WAN environments,” Savill said. “What we’re doing there with Palo Alto is working with them to certify their virtualized firewall on the Nokia platform, and all three of us are teaming up to make that happen.”

The applications are available through Nokia’s Industrial Application Catalog, which includes Nokia’s growing as-a-service offerings and it also accessible through its partners like Kyndryl.

Nokia initially unveiled the cloud-native MXIE platform in late 2021. It includes compute, storage, networking and application management functions that runs on Nokia’s Digital Automation Cloud (DAC) to provide central management.

MXIE basically acts as an on-premises edge platform for the management of operational technology services, including private networks. This also allows for enterprise data sovereignty management.

It also ties heavily into Nokia’s private network services. In an accompanying blog post, Stephane Daeuble, head of enterprise solutions marketing at Nokia, linked the two as “key to kickstarting and enabling Industry 4.0 transformation” at customer sites.

“Private wireless and industrial devices provide a foundation for these transformation steps by connecting all the machines, systems, sensors and workers in the plant,” Daeuble wrote. “They form the nervous system of the plant by getting real-time data from these assets and, eventually, sending instructions to them.”

Nokia has been cited as a leader in much-hyped private network space. Puneet Shetty, VP of product marketing at rival Celona, labeled Nokia as being the “800-pound gorilla in the private wireless space.”

The vendor recently added its private 5G platform to its lab-as-a-service infrastructure allowing device vendors and enterprises to test interconnectivity on top of Nokia’s DAC and modular private wireless networks. The physical labs themselves are currently located in the United States, Europe, South Korea and Japan, with the vendor extending the lab footprint to Bangalore, India.