THE CONNECTED EDGE
I love to explain the Edge and its importance by citing NASA’s Mars Rover
project. Mars is so far away that during the Curiosity landing, if there was a
problem, it would have taken 13 minutes for the radio signals to reach Earth
and at least 13 more for the response to make it back. A lot can happen in 30
minutes, namely the whole Curiosity landing!
The delay, of course, is due to the speed of light. To keep the Mars Exploration
spacecraft flying safely, NASA made sure the required computing and
commands were on board so all the relevant information could be close to the
action. That is the Edge—where compute acts on data in real time.
The Connected Edge, or IoT, represents the best of both worlds, where
devices and computers can work together unsupervised—such as the Mars
Rover—while also being connected to nearly infinite storage and processing in
the cloud. And although connections can potentially increase security risk, the
benefits of Edge and IoT are too great to ignore.
IoT data is already fueling the engines of AI
and other emerging technologies that impact
every aspect of life. We’re seeing this impact as Capturing IoT’s full potential
customers across many industries successfully
to enable data-driven decision
use Edge and IoT.
For example, top-selling protective eyewear making will require leaders
brand Uvex monitors machines, protective wear, to embrace innovations in
and environmental parameters in real time to
technologies, change business
maximize worker safety on construction sites
and in factories. Siza, a not-for-profit organization
that provides medical and technology capabilities and talent.
models, and invest in new
support to people living with disabilities, uses
IoT-based monitoring and alerting capabilities
to predict if a patient might need assistance
and send help. AeroFarms, too, is transforming agriculture with indoor, IoTequipped
vertical farms to increase yields 390X over traditional farming—with
95 percent less water.
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BEST PRACTICES FOR ENTERPRISE IOT
The opportunity for IoT and Edge is significant, but there are challenges. The
most pronounced is that, in business, the demands of “right now” can outweigh
the demands of tomorrow.