Making IoT Real With Intelligent Gateways

We’ve been talking a lot about the Internet of Things (IoT) and the opportunities it brings to almost every industry. But how do businesses start making IoT a reality today? We captured a great conversation recently with executives from Intel, McAfee, and Wind River who are on the leading edge of IoT solutions development. In this first segment, Jim Douglas, SVP at Wind River, introduces intelligent gateways as a tool for connecting legacy and existing infrastructure. Stay tuned for future posts from Kumar Balasubramanian and Tom Moore with their perspectives. — Valerie Scarsellato, aka @Intel_Chick, Marketing Specialist, IoT Solutions Group

Making IoT Real With Intelligent Gateways – Guest blog by Jim Douglas, SVP Wind River

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the media darling these days―and for good reason. Our world is in the midst of a dramatic transformation from isolated systems to Internet-enabled devices that can network and communicate with each other and the cloud. There is tremendous promise for businesses of all kinds to utilize data generated from connected, intelligent devices that can produce insights that will help them optimize and even wholly transform their business. But the benefits of IoT are not confined to new systems. Intelligent gateways that integrate with existing and legacy infrastructure are a critical component in the evolutionary path that is making IoT real to businesses today.

Have a look at this new video where I discuss with my colleagues Kumar Balasubramanian, of Intel, and Tom Moore, of McAfee, the importance of intelligent gateways.

More than 85 percent of existing devices in the marketplace are based on legacy systems, and companies will usually only roll out new systems when it makes financial sense to do so. Energy companies, for example, are not going to replace million-dollar transformers overnight. Solutions are needed to address interoperability as an interim step. The good news is that intelligent gateways connect legacy systems and provide common interfaces and seamless communications among systems and with the cloud. This “system of systems” helps ensure that the data generated by devices and existing infrastructure can be harnessed securely to extract business value.

Intel technology-based intelligent gateways bring integrated and pre-validated hardware and software into the picture, including the Wind River Intelligent Device Platform, a complete software development environment used for building machine-to-machine (M2M) applications and devices that communicate with the cloud. The platform provides ready-to-use components to secure, manage, and connect IoT gateways. It also allows businesses to deploy application services much quicker, freeing them to focus on business innovation.

A great example of intelligent gateways in action is Westfalen Weser Energie, a German utility company that uses an intelligent gateway solution in its secondary substations to interact with various sensors on the distribution line and detect various parameters. This helps to control and balance the energy across its network and avoid secondary substation overcapacity which can lead to blackouts.

We’re now living in a world where every device that will benefit from IoT will become a part of it. Intelligent gateways are providing the means to bring legacy infrastructure into IoT today. Where will gateways fit into your business? Have a look at the video and let us know.

Blog originally posted on http://blogs.intel.com/iot/2014/01/making-iot-real-intelligent-gateways/