Real-time analytics on IoT data

Why real-time analytics matters for IoT systems

IoT systems access millions of devices that generate large amounts of streaming data. For some equipment, a single event may prove critical to understanding and responding to the health of the machine in real time, increasing the importance of accurate, reliable data. While real-time data remains important, storing and analyzing the historical data also creates opportunities to improve processes, decision-making and outcomes.

Smart grids, which include components like sensors and smart meters, produce a wealth of telemetry data that can be used for multiple purposes, including:

◉ Identifying anomalies such as manufacturing defects or process deviations

◉ Predictive maintenance on devices (such as meters and transformers)

◉ Real-time operational dashboards

◉ Inventory optimization (in retail)

◉ Supply chain optimization (in manufacturing)

Considering solutions for real-time analytics on IoT data

One way to achieve real-time analytics is with a combination of a time-series database (InfluxDB or TimescaleDB) or a NoSQL database (MongoDB) + a data warehouse + a BI tool:

This architecture raises a question: Why would one use an operational database, and still need a data warehouse? Architects consider such a separation so they can choose a special-purpose database — such as a NoSQL database for document data — or a time-series database (key-value) for low costs and high performance.

However, this separation also creates a data bottleneck — data can’t be analyzed without moving it from an operational data store to the warehouse. Additionally, NoSQL databases are not great at analytics, especially when it comes to complex joins and real-time analytics.

Is there a better way? What if you could get all of the above with a general-purpose, high-performance SQL database? You’d need this type of database to support time-series data, streaming data ingestion, real–time analytics and perhaps even JSON documents.

Achieving a real-time architecture with SingleStoreDB + IBM Cognos

SingleStoreDB supports fast ingestion with Pipelines (native first class feature) and concurrent analytics for IoT data to enable real-time analytics. On top of SingleStoreDB, you can use IBM® Cognos® Business Intelligence to help you make sense of all of this data. The previously described architecture then simplifies into:

Real-time analytics with SingleStoreDB & IBM Cognos

Pipelines in SingleStoreDB allow you to continuously load data at blazing fast speeds. Millions of events can be ingested each second in parallel from data sources such as Kafka, cloud object storage or HDFS. This means you can stream in structured — as well as unstructured data — for real-time analytics.

But wait, it gets better…

1. Once data is in SingleStoreDB, it can also be used for real-time machine learning, or to safely run application code imported into a sandbox with SingleStoreDB’s Code Engine Powered by Web Assembly (Wasm).

2. With SingleStoreDB, you can also leverage geospatial data — for instance to factor site locations, or to visualize material moving through your supply chains.

Armis and Infiswift are just a couple of examples of how customers use SingleStoreDB for IoT applications:

◉ Armis uses SingleStoreDB to help enterprises discover and secure IoT devices. Armis originally started with PostgreSQL, migrated to ElasticSearch for better search performance and considered Google Big Query before finally picking SingleStoreDB for its overall capabilities across relational, analytics and text search. The Armis Platform, of which SingleStoreDB now plays a significant part, collects an array of raw data (traffic, asset, user data and more) from various sources — then processes, analyzes, enriches and aggregates it.

◉ Infiswift selected SingleStoreDB after evaluating several other databases. Their decision was driven in part because of SingleStore’s Universal Storage technology (a hybrid table type that works for both transactional and analytical workloads).

Want to learn more about achieving real-time analytics?

Join IBM and SingleStore on Sep 21, 2022 for our webinar “Accelerating Real-Time IoT Analytics with IBM Cognos and SingleStore”. You will learn how real-time data can be leveraged to identify anomalies and create alarms by reading meter data, and classifying unusual spikes as warnings.

We will demonstrate:

◉ Streaming data ingestion using SingleStoreDB Pipelines

◉ Stored procedures in SingleStoreDB to classify data before it is persisted on disk or in memory

◉ Dashboarding with Cognos

These capabilities enable companies to:

◉ Provide better quality of service through quickly reacting to or predicting service interruptions due to equipment failures

◉ Identify opportunities to increase production throughput as needed

◉ Quickly and accurately invoice customers for their utilization

Source: ibm.com

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Cloud innovation in real estate: Apleona and IBM rely on new technologies

Digitization does not stop at the proverbial concrete gold — real estate. In fact, the real estate industry is on the move. Companies are realizing the benefits of digital transformation and are capitalizing on the power of new technologies such as cloud, AI and blockchain.

Take, for example, Apleona GmbH, one of Europe’s largest real estate service providers. The German company has more than €2 billion in sales and manages properties in all asset classes in more than 30 countries. Apleona recognizes that it can broaden the established facility management model by strategically partnering with its corporate clients to transform and digitize their offerings. To this end, Apleona has been working with IBM since 2017 in a digital partnership that is continually expanding. The company has already implemented a range of innovative ideas, including the following new applications:

◉ Room Booking is the easy and fast way to book office conference rooms without spending too much time on mobile apps. The mobile terminal’s visual representation can also display which rooms are occupied or vacant. As a result, you can quickly find available spaces in the building.

◉ With Smart Ticketing, office workers can use a mobile app to create a “ticket” in just a few clicks if they notice a problem such as defective devices in the office. With this simple and straightforward solution, employees can track the ticket’s processing through the app. IBM Watson AI Services even allows them to “spot” problems so they can automatically create a categorized ticket.

◉ Finally, Energy Pods are convenient mini-booths for “power naps” in the office, optionally accompanied by music or guided meditations. Employees can recharge in these stylish pods and even book them with a mobile phone. Four of the units are in use and are very popular at the IBM headquarters; more are planned at other locations.

New technologies and agile methods are key to innovative solutions

Apleona team members and experienced IBM IT consultants co-created the new solutions in the IBM Garage in Munich, Germany. Most of the applications are hosted on IBM Cloud in the Frankfurt data center, but the customer-oriented flexibility of the IBM hybrid multicloud platform makes the applications available across platforms.

The Apleona and IBM team capitalized on existing real estate and facility management data in inventive ways to develop new offerings. To create smart environments that optimally adapt to people’s needs, the team used data analytics, cognitive automation, edge computing and AI. These technologies, in connection with sensor technology and the cloud, made it possible to process and transfer data streams.

The forward-thinking and agile principles of the IBM Garage Methodology also helped Apleona succeed in its digital transformation. Apleona and IBM continue to follow this methodology at the IBM Watson IoT Center, which serves as the team’s co-creation space. This location even boasts the Room Booking solution.

Expanding offerings and scaling solutions

While the real estate industry has recognized the general benefits of digitization, critical voices are still asking for detailed business cases and quantifiable cost savings. How do you quickly scale the new solutions? “In our industry, innovation and monetization must always be thought of together,” explains Dr. Jochen Keysberg, Chief Executive Officer at Apleona. “That’s why it’s so important that new ideas, such as those developed with IBM, always have competitive advantages, efficiency improvements and better resource utilization in mind.”

The real estate industry cannot shy away from digitization, and like Apleona, other facility managers will have to adopt modern solutions to succeed in the marketplace. “Simply start, develop agile and at the same time, bring the required expertise to the table. Then quickly validate and test it with the addressed users. In our experience, it usually works in a quite straightforward way,” explains Stefan Lutz, General Manager and Services Transformation Program Leader at IBM.

Indeed, new customers, including a major German bank and global companies in the technology, energy and automation industries, are already relying on the innovation of Apleona and IBM. In addition, other IBM locations will soon use Apleona’s cutting-edge solutions, and more applications will roll out in 2020. The joint team is excited to see the offerings expand and the solutions scale.

Source: ibm.com

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Driving innovation for connected cars using IBM Cloud

Cars have always been built for travel, but the experience of driving has changed dramatically over the last few decades. Today’s connected cars are not only equipped with seamless internet, but usually have a wireless local area network (WLAN) that allows the car to access data, send data and communicate with Internet of Things (IoT) technology to improve safety and efficiency and optimize performance. The car’s connectivity with the outside world provides a superior in-car experience with on-the-go access to all the features one might have at home.

Traditionally, the networks supporting this robust connectivity, unlike cars, have not been built for travel. Data is stored in a home network in a local data center, which causes latency issues as the car travels and massive amounts of data are transferred across borders. In addition, privacy legislation, like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), limit the transfer of personal data outside the EU, which not only creates a poor user experience on the road, but can impact safety-related IoT insights.

We at Travelping saw an opportunity to use cloud-native technologies for networking to help the automotive industry negotiate the challenges of cross-border data management regulations and improve latency issues for auto manufacturers looking to gain real-time IoT insights.

Road less traveled is most efficient

Travelping develops carrier-grade cloud-native network functions (CNFs) that are used to design software-defined networking solutions. Using IBM Cloud infrastructure products and IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service, we created a cloud-native solution that transports data directly to the vehicles, eliminating latency issues while fulfilling requirements for GDPR. We had strict technical requirements for our IT infrastructure and chose IBM Cloud for several reasons. IBM has a global footprint, which was key for us to provide networking capabilities in the cloud and better manage compliance with GDPR and European Data Security Operation laws, which was not possible on other clouds. Many clouds in the field are what we call north-south clouds. They terminate web traffic. Our solution forwards the traffic for our mobile users — what we call east-west traffic. IBM Cloud is the only one that still allows us to transport data from node to node in a network, and not just terminate it.

For us, one of the biggest advantages in choosing IBM Cloud, in addition to all the automation and speed, is that as a team of 30 people, we can deliver globally on a cloud platform that is deployed globally. And we don’t need to invest a penny for that; we can utilize computer resources that are virtually everywhere.

Software-defined networking is a radical change in the way networking is approached today as it brings the entire software development ecosystem close to the network, allowing operators to integrate all the network resources into the application domain. We moved to IBM Cloud Kubernetes and container deployment because you get an environment where you can run services that are rather simple in a five-nine — 99.999 percent service availability — environment. And it’s a five-nine environment that you get mostly for free, by following Kubernetes or cloud-native principles. With Kubernetes, there’s a common API. It works on private cloud and private deployment, but it also works in public clouds. You are totally agnostic, from developer notebook to private cloud deployments to edge deployments. You deploy in exactly the same way again and again. And this is only possible with Kubernetes.

Promise of 5G

For our industry, there’s a promise of 5G, and that cannot be fulfilled by the carrier alone anymore. There needs to be trust between operators and cloud providers to deliver a distributed infrastructure. Operators trust software vendors like us to create services for them. The whole 5G promise needs to be on more shoulders than it is at the at the moment, so that’s a little bit of a paradigm shift. It’s the first time in the mobile industry that we have had this shift. We need to create another infrastructure for communications services in the field, and that needs to be distributed; the cloud is the foundation for that. You don’t need to mount telecommunications equipment in owned data centers anymore because 90 percent of the spec is available in the cloud. You can book resources wherever you want to go. And this is a huge advantage — global carriers or local carriers can act globally and fulfill local regulations. A company from Germany can deploy in South Korea, as we have done on IBM Cloud. This was not possible in the past, but it’s possible today with cloud resources. In our experience, especially in Europe, IBM plays a role because it is a trusted partner of big customers, and therefore the entry was relatively easy for us.

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