IBM and Cisco Integrate Watson IoT With Edge Analytics

Cisco Systems, Inc.

and International Business Machines Corp.

have disclosed about a global collaboration to offer instant Internet of Things (IoT) insight at the edge of the network. According to the companies, businesses, as well as, organizations in remote and autonomous locations would be able to tap the combined power of IBM's Watson IoT and business analytics technologies and Cisco's edge analytics capabilities to more deeply understand and act on critical data on the network edge. IBM and Cisco said that billions of interconnected devices, as well as, sensors were gathering vast amounts of real-time data about the physical world. The two firms added that in recent years, cloud computing has provided firms with a powerful way of storing that data and turning it into valuable insight. However, for businesses without easy access to high bandwidth connectivity, these capabilities were sometimes out of reach or take too long. IBM and Cisco have joined hands to offer a new way to produce immediate, actionable insight at the point of data collection. The new approach is designed to target companies operating on the edge of computer networks like oil rigs, factories, shipping companies and mines, where time was of the essence but bandwidth was often lacking. IBM Watson IoT GM, Harriet Green, commented, "The way we experience and interact with the physical world is being transformed by the power of cloud computing and the Internet of Things. For an oil rig in a remote location or a factory where critical decisions have to be taken immediately, uploading all data to the cloud is not always the best option. By coming together, IBM and Cisco are taking these powerful IoT technologies the last mile, extending Watson IoT from the cloud to the edge of computer networks, helping to make these strong analytics capabilities available virtually everywhere, always." Similarly, Cisca Data & Analytics Platforms Group SVP, Mala Anand, said, "Together, Cisco and IBM are positioned to help organizations make real-time informed decisions based on business-critical data that was often previously undetected and overlooked. With the vast amount of data being created at the edge of the network, using existing Cisco® infrastructure to perform streaming analytics is the perfect way to cost-effectively obtain real-time insights. Our powerful technology provides customers with the flexibility to combine this edge processing with the cognitive computing power of the IBM Watson IoT Platform." The two company said that by tapping into the power of the IBM Watson IoT platform and Cisco edge analytics, these firms could adopt the latest approaches to condition based maintenance through which equipment was monitored in real-time, potentially helping reduce maintenance expenses by a maximum of 50 percent and lift productivity by 25 percent. While IBM traded 0.31 percent higher, CSCO shares traded 0.28 percent up in the pre-market trading on Thursday.