SAS Global Forum: What's Working in the IoT, and What's Not

Data management giant SAS last week hosted its annual Global Forum and celebrated its 40th birthday in Las Vegas, and your faithful IoT Evolution World team was there to bring you the skinny on what's hot and what's not in big data science for the IoT.

In a Tuesday session, Beth Parkinson, VP, Global Business Development, Rockwell Automation, teamed up with Tamara Dull, Director, Emerging Technologies, SAS, to give attendees a sense of what's working in the IoT, and what really isn't.

Parkinson talked about several success stories from her work with Rockwell's clients, beginning with a major oil and gas company. Rockwell helped the oil company enable its well heads with intelligent software for predicting failures and revamping the service cycle. In the old system, the company was on a three week inspection cycle, so a well could be down nearly a month before anyone knew it wasn't producing.

"Now, with on site monitoring, we can watch the wellheads in real-time," Parkinson said. "We've been able to change how they're managing analytics."

Another success case the two hit upon was  in the area of regulatory controls and visibility. Parkinson said that they can use technology to track and trace entire supply chain infrastructures, and they're doing so with BeingMate, a baby formula company in China, which is now tracking every ingrediant from farm to factory in order to maintain food safety.

What this all means, Dull said, is that "IoT is no longer a 'nice to have' element. We have to know how we will use this data for new, innovative offerings in the market."

To get there, however, there are several fundamental changes that have to happen in the IoT, the pair said. In fact, there are five challenges holding it up.

1) Data security and privacy
2) Interoperability standards
3)Technology adoption
4) Competency and talent
5) Organizational alignment

All of these challenegs need to be overcome before the IoT can truly be successful, and smart comnaies are already moving toward solutions. "If yo're not moving already, you might not be agile enough to be competitive in the future," Parkinson said.