Johannesburg, 24 Jan 2017
In our 35-plus years of providing continuous availability solutions for enterprises, we've seen only a handful of technology shifts that you could call "seismic", says Stratus Technologies. The globalisation of eCommerce was a big one that was transformational for mission critical infrastructures. At Stratus, we believe that the next big transformation - the Industrial Internet of things (IIoT) - has the potential to be even more seismic.
Over the past year or so we have been more and more engaged in pilots and solutions for IIoT. We see this as a major shift in how industries such as utilities, food and beverage, pharma and others will deliver products to market and become more efficient. IIoT is on the minds of just about everyone working in these and other industries today on some level. But, there's a lot of information out there to digest and it's still very much in its infancy.
Based on our experiences to date, here are our predictions for how IIoT will shape up in 2017.
1. Companies will need to get educated about IIoT
IT vendors have started to create awareness of the value of IIoT. This has helped users begin to run pilot projects and experience the benefits of IIoT first hand. In response, more companies will need to get educated. This will lead to frank assessments about infrastructure, which often will reveal that most operations lack secure connectivity, virtualisation, and reliability needed for IIoT. Addressing those infrastructure weaknesses will be a top agenda item for 2017.
2. Small wins will yield bigger investments in IIoT
We expect many companies to start their IIoT journey by pursuing short-term projects that have big efficiency or cost impact. For example, one of our customers has been doing some cool work piloting analytics technology to diagnose and troubleshoot issues in a production line. This produced valuable intelligence that has made the production line more efficient. Small victories such as these will become more common and will give industrial automation decision-makers more confidence to support bolder investments.
3. Reliability and security are the hot buttons for companies considering IIoT
Success with IIoT requires starting with an infrastructure you trust. So 2017 will be the year to lock down reliability and security. Then you can focus solely identifying those IIoT investments that will return the powerful benefits to your business. In manufacturing and energy, the primary benefits will be efficiency and productivity gains. Building security and management should look for cost savings by shrinking the technology footprint. Financial services can expect improved performance, data integrity and business agility.
At Stratus, we believe the potential impact of IIoT on an array of industries is huge. A number of early adopters have already proved this. However, the best approach is to start with a reliable infrastructure to support your IIoT vision. If you agree, keep in mind that =Stratus has been a driving availability in the Industrial Automation market for decades. In fact, our first customer was in the food and beverage industry. But further that just our zero downtime advantage industrial customers really value how Stratus solutions dramatically simplify their unique operational requirements.
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