Business value of IoT data
Nearly every available surface in the physical world is being instrumented with sensors — streets, cars, factories, power grids, ice caps, satellites, clothing, phones, microwaves, milk containers, planets, even human bodies. This data is streaming in real time and will require companies to select an IoT data platform architecture that is resilient, scalable and extensible enough to handle these new workloads.
If businesses can properly harness all of this data, they can gain real-time insights, accelerate decision-making, perform automated tasks, and create value by enabling organizations to become data-driven.
IoT devices will generate more data than we have ever experienced. This data is streaming in real time and will force companies to determine which IoT data platform architecture will be resilient, scalable, and extensible enough to handle these new workloads.
Monitoring and tracking
Tracking battery performance, turbine production, package delivery status and generally visually monitoring sensor data provides incredible capabilities to the business and their customers. This is usually the first step in any successful IoT project.
Analytics
Using historical data from sensors to gain insights that can be applied to the current situation creates a major competitive advantage. Predictive maintenance, optimized traffic routing, reduced churn management, and enhanced water conservation are all possible with IoT analytics.
Action and control
With the speed and velocity of events being generated by sensors, businesses want to act on this data in real time with no human interaction. For example, automatically shutting down a pump if a leak is detected, or changing wind turbine direction based on wind speed, all create an immediate business advantage.
IoT data characteristics
IoT data is different from the data that typical application architectures and platforms have been created to solve. IoT data, or sensor data, has three unique characteristics:
IoT data is time series data
IoT is synonymous with time-stamped data, or time series data since the purpose of any sensor is to measure change over time. To gain insight and act, systems need to evaluate and analyze the data based on timeframes and ranges. The modern IoT data platform needs to be optimized for time series data.
IoT data is streaming data
IoT is synonymous with streaming data. Data is created by a myriad of sensors, and each sensor emits a relentless stream of data. The modern IoT data platform needs to be optimized for streaming data and has actionable analytics to find the signal from all the noise.
IoT data is real-time
Sensors capture and emit data in real time. Greater business value is derived if the data can also be interpreted and acted upon in real time. The modern IoT data platform is designed to handle real-time ingestion and real-time streaming analytics.
Featured customers:
tado°
tado uses InfluxDB Cloud to provide analytics from its hundreds of thousands of sensors units across the globe. They use this data to power their smartphone apps helping customers understand energy usage and generate energy savings.
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Spiio
Spiio chose InfluxData to be its IoT data platform. Spiio uses sensors to understand plant performance for optimal green wall growth and maintenance from data. InfluxData provided the scalability and ease of use needed for fast deployment.
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BBOXX
BBOXX uses InfluxData as its IoT Data Platform, to continuously monitor their geographically dispersed 85,000 solar units. They use this data to provide predictive maintenance and are becoming a data-driven organization.
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