By Fernando Sanchez, see his blog here Life Mirror and more articles by him for Irish Tech News here.

The many facets of IoT

A yellow school bus rumbles to a stop in a quiet Oklahoma suburb. As kids climb into the vehicle, onboard equipment counts them and tags them up, to ensure all pupils who are supposed to be there are present and safe.

Elsewhere, a gigantic pump whirrs away quietly inside a mining site in South Africa. Onboard software monitors the pump’s mechanical integrity, and notices an incipient problem. The smart software gathers data and sends it to a datacentre, where preventive maintenance will be scheduled before any breakdown occurs.

And all the while in Ireland, a herd of cows grazes away in a wet and grassy field. Only this is no ordinary herd. These cows are wearing a fitbit-like device around the lower leg, to monitor the cows’ gait, movement patterns, and other parameters, in an effort to detect early signs of lameness. An early detection is vital to provide adequate care.

The IoT is an entity with many faces and many facets, a multi-dimensional reality that may one day pervade each and everyone’s daily life. The world’s in turning digital, and Dell is there leading the way.

IoT: From smart fields to smart cities

There is a lot of buzz about the Internet of Things (IoT) these days. The inter-connectivity and inter-operability of items as seemingly disparate as refrigerators, motion sensors, oil pumps, and health-related devices for domestic animals is the next holy grail for tech companies. Yet, seventy five percent of projects involving IoT fail, for reasons such as lack of communication, slow progress that leads to fading interest, poor quality overall, or low relevance of the idea being presented. It is hard to make inroads in the hotly contested IoT universe. The motives for such a high failure rate are diverse, but in many cases, preventable. It just needs a good idea, careful planning, and the right environment to test the viability of such idea. Many commercial organisations might tick one or more of those boxes, but there’s usually a shortfall.

If there is one tech company stands high above the rest, in terms of IoT for sure, among many other accolades.

Dell Inc. remains at the cutting edge of technology, currently offering the broadest IoT solutions portfolio. Dell’s technology powers all the devices mentioned above, which represents a leading global footprint in the IoT market.

To promote and expand its international reach, Dell has set up a network of Solution Centres at 19 key locations worldwide. The purpose of these facilities is to invite potential customers to come in and ‘play’ with Dell IoT technology, to get hands-on experience, and to test out ideas and proofs of concepts. Dell’s Solution Centre in Limerick, Ireland, is actually part of the core engineering network, thus a key facility. The idea behind these centres is to build the required infrastructure to handle all the data gathered from the IoT hardware, with the goal of creating a full IoT solution from edge to core to Cloud.

Overall, these centres offer customer almost endless opportunities for demonstration, collaboration, innovation, and validation of their projects and designs, a sort of ‘playground’ where ideas come to life before a customer’s very eyes, leading to further business.

And IoT is good for business, there’s no doubt about that. The IoT ecosystem promotes efficiency, as novel ways to develop your business are offered and presented.

It also fosters customer delight, as their devices are updated regularly via the Cloud. New firmware, security enhancements, or improved functionality are seamlessly delivered in real time, when available.

IoT can also monitor and improve the safety of your business, via an integrated grid of sensors and cameras that can be monitored from almost anywhere, at any time.

And of course, there is a financial side of things to the IoT too. The enhanced connectivity of objects, devices, and entities gives rise to new sales and new revenue streams. The road to the IoT is a profitable one.

The Internet of Things is all about achieving Digital Transformation, that is, the transformation of all processes and business procedures into a fully digital environment. Such move will have a fast and direct bearing on how business is conducted, and will lead to a more successful and profitable path going forward.

From smart fields to smart cities and beyond, from monitoring cows’ behaviour, the inner workings of mining pumps, or where and how a school bus full of children is driving, the IoT represents a quantum leap in technology and business, with Dell leading the race to a digital future.

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