A big buzzword right now is the internet of things (IoT). Is it really useful?

Recently I had the opportunity to participate in an IoT class and lab sponsored by Intel and Microsoft. I was able to set up sensors, connect them to a gateway, store the readings in a cloud database, chart both locally and from the cloud, and set up alarms using software on the cloud.

Imagine troubleshooting intermittent process difficulties by...​

2. Setting up independent sensors to monitor process operation.
3. Connecting the sensors to an IoT enabled gateway and storing sensor data in the cloud.
4. Analyzing the cloud data for process anomalies and determining the root cause.

Advantages are

• ​No process modifications are needed. No rewriting control code or burdening existing network data collection.

• Rather than having to set up internal computing and storage resources, you create what you need on the fly.

• Cloud services are charged by time and/or amount of data. It can be less than $1 a day to collect a lot of data and when you have what you need, just stop the service.