There has been much discussion through the years in many sectors of the economy around what the “Internet of Things” (IoT) can do to transform the way we work and live. In brief, the IoT is about networking “things” like devices and even life-forms so that information may be collected from these things over time and form the basis for in-depth analysis and better decisions.
IoT inevitably involves sensors, wireless technology of all sorts, a cloud to aggregate data, and analytics to create insights from this data. Many people have encountered this business paradigm in their personal lives, whether it is through wearable fitness trackers (maybe you are counting steps, and then uploading that information to an App on your smart-phone or into the cloud), your internet-connected Emerson thermostat, household security system, or your smart TV. These are consumer examples of the IoT phenomenon, and collectively are described as the wearables or Smart Home sub-segments.
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is commercial application of this business model, and is about gathering sensor-sourced data from business processes in order to make better business decisions. Does this sound familiar? DeltaV SaaS SCADA has been offering solutions like this to several industries for over 30 years. We're here for the long haul and have the experts to prove it.
In some circles, it has been labelled Digital Oil Field, Digital Transformation, Data Fabric, and on and on... but in principle, it is really an application of this broader business phenomenon that has also manifested itself in running municipal infrastructure like; gas distribution, water management, wastewater management, mining, oil and gas production, cold chain, agriculture, food production, utilities, or manufacturing.
As a result of this phenomenon, many companies claim to have an IoT rather than an IIoT platform. The difference between IoT and IIoT; is the word 'Industrial' in IIoT, and that's the DeltaV SaaS SCADA focus; we're all about the industries we proudly serve. So, for us it's all about the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).
We believe a good platform should be easily able to do these 9 things:
- Connect – securely manage connections between individual “Things” and the cloud
- Configure – allow you to remotely configure how you want your “Things” to behave
- Identify – authenticate both things and authorized users who use the platform
- Store – efficiently receive and store data and information in an efficient and scalable manner
- Orchestrate – actions and decisions based on business rules you might set
- Analyze – add value to data sourced from “things” through advanced analytics
- Present – insights and vivid data visualizations in an easy-to-use application
- Perform – meet performance and capacity expectations you have of a cloud-based service
- Interface – with other applications
Not all platforms perform all of these functions, and one notable area where many platforms struggle is in interfacing between the world of physical things, which source the data in the first place, and the cloud platforms, which aggregate the data and from which analysis can then be done.
Emerson has solved this problem by creating several next-generation gateway and edge devices and products. These devices bridge the gap with low-power wireless technologies. All this may seem like a giant step for operations today, but it's what our experts can easily walk you through to better understand how it can help your operations become more productive, profitable and sustainable for years to come while also increasing safety for people and environment around you.
