Cisco And IBM To Help Industry Analyse IoT Data At Network Edge

Cisco and IBM are combining their respective analytics and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies into a single product that can analyse data at the edge of the network, paving the way for businesses to get more immediate insights from remote or autonomous offices and facilities.

IBM’s Watson IoT platform and business analytics technology is paired with Cisco’s edge analytics and it is though industrial customers will benefit the most. The partners claim that just one percent of IoT data is being analysed at present because of the difficulties in transporting it across a network.

Oil rigs, factories, ships and mines are cited as examples of locations that could be transformed by the IoT and the data that can be gathered, but are constrained by poor bandwidth.  Maintenance and logistics are two areas that could be affected.

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By moving to the edge of the network, this analysis can be done on-site, especially since many processes do not require the computational power at the core of the network. Some of it could even be done on a mobile device, saving customers money.

The joint-produce is already being used by the Port of Cartagena in Colombia and by Silverhook Powerboats, a manufacturer of high speed racing ships.

“For an oil rig in a remote location or a factory where critical decisions have to be taken immediately, uploading all data to the cloud is not always the best option,” said Harriet Green, general manager of IBM Watson IoT for commerce and education.

“By coming together, IBM and Cisco are taking these powerful IoT technologies the last mile, extending Watson IoT from the cloud to the edge of computer networks, helping to make these strong analytics capabilities available virtually everywhere, always.”

“Together, Cisco and IBM are positioned to help organizations make real-time informed decisions based on business-critical data that was often previously undetected and overlooked,” added Mala Anand, senior vice president of the Cisco Data & Analytics Platforms Group. “With the vast amount of data being created at the edge of the network, using existing Cisco infrastructure to perform streaming analytics is the perfect way to cost-effectively obtain real-time insights.”

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