FEATURES - Strategic Solutions Series
June 08, 2015

Complex Made Simple: A New Approach to Enabling the Internet of Things

By TMCnet Special Guest
Alan Tait, CTO, Stream Technologies

There was a time when machine-to-machine applications relied on a single communications protocol. That time has passed. As M2M communications morphs into the Internet of Things, the technical complexity of applications is growing. The days when mastering a single connection type was good enough have passed. After all, there are a lot of different types of connections out there. In today’s Industrial Internet, connections and data types can seem as varied as snowflakes.

As Industrial IoT applications come of age, more and more solutions rely on more and more types of connectivity working together. Hard-wired, cellular, Wi-Fi, low-power, license-free, satellite and sensor networking, to name a few – the possible combinations are near endless. Moreover, as software (as a service) platforms mature, IoT adopters have come to expect a certain level of control over each and every connection. If only there were a platform that treated every type of connection and every type of data exactly the same.

That’s exactly the problem Stream Technologies has made it our business to solve. We understand that for the end user, the data type and connection type doesn’t matter – the intelligence he or she can glean from connected devices is where the value lies. It is really important to be able to monetize connections, rather than connecting just for the sake of being connected.

Of course, when it comes to total cost of ownership, being able to effectively manage myriad connections is a critical part of that economic equation. To make that equation balance, we are working to make data and connection type transparent to the adopter.

Whether the data is transmitted via robust cellular gateway, or a simple, low-power, short-range device, Stream’s IoT-X platform and multi-network connectivity enables comprehensive, secure management of connected devices regardless of connection type – allowing IoT adopters to reach beyond the gateway all the way to the sensor level to provide a single, unified view of every relevant connection, whether it be satellite, cellular, Wi-Fi, short-range or low-power WAN.

In other words, whether an enterprise is monitoring refrigeration levels at local grocery outlets, critical systems inside hospital buildings, or the location and mechanical fitness of a local taxi fleet, multi-network connectivity allows the enterprise to manage not only the cellular connection transmitting information to the Internet, but also all related sensors reporting data to the aggregating cellular portal.

After all, understanding the status of the cellular gateway is important – but it isn’t much help if a downstream temperature sensor, window sensor, or GPS device is not working properly.

We built this functionality into our system from the very start. While most of our competitors take a SIM-centric telco view of activation, we don’t.

IoT-X fuses monitoring, management, and billing on a single platform with super resilient backhaul infrastructure to provide a virtual state of network representation to enable smarter products for a smarter world.

The IoT-X platform was recently identified by ABI Research as “one of the most disruptive technologies to hit the IoT market in years,” in its report Hot Tech Innovators at the beginning of the year.

Additionally, in early April, Stream announced it has been selected by Digicel Group, a leading global communications provider with operations in 33 markets in the Caribbean, Central America, and Asia Pacific, to drive its Internet of Things growth strategy.

But for Stream, it’s not just the software that makes us different.

We’re putting together an ecosystem of fantastic partners to support our customers. At Mobile World Congress, we were in demos in the ARM and InterDigital booths. And we’ve announced B&B Electronics, SalesForce, ThingWorx, WoT.io, and Zebra Technologies as initial strategic partners and are adding countless others.

Visit stream-technologies.com to learn more.




Edited by Ken Briodagh


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