It’s Time for Buzzword Bingo with LogistiVIEW!

LogistiVIEW explores the relationship between Cloud, Big Data and Internet of Things (IoT)

​We in the tech industry love our buzzwords.  We put them through hype cycles and go all-in to gain serious mindshare.
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In this entry, we will examine synergies among the three most prominent technology buzzwords today, and introduce a new one that is right up in our wheelhouse.

This is a very exciting time in the world of computing.  The last several years have birthed three separate technology initiatives, each of which are changing the way we traditionally think about systems architecture.  Each is a major industry transformation in its own right.  Taken together, we can really start to realize the next phase of technological revolution.
 
Get your head into the clouds!

I’ve heard some other old-timers describe cloud computing as, “just another version of the mainframe days.”  Not really.  While it’s true that one aspect of cloud computing is a centralization of computing power into shared resources, the similarities end pretty quickly.

A true cloud mindset says there are no practical limits necessitated by this sharing of resources.  A cloud mindset says that it’s 100% OK to create a computing workload and consider it, “someone else’s problem.”  Real clouds are amorphous and opaque.  The computing metaphor was chosen for a reason.

In the mainframe days, time slices were carefully allotted.  Adding more computing power or upgrading any of the various layers was a major undertaking, fraught with risk and requiring carefully orchestrated downtime.  When “cloud” is done properly, a cloud services consumer reacts to these events with a resounding, “Meh.”

In brief, economically viable cloud computing allows us to shed the limitations of computing power constraints in our innovations.  The computing power is there to be had; game on.
 
Big Data.  HUUUUGE Data.  Magnificent Data!

In an industry not normally known for understatement, big data as a term breaks convention.  In a nutshell, we are seeing technologies that can manage more information than anyone (currently) knows how to process.

These advances are a natural outcome of both the passage of time and the explosion of computing devices and systems throughout the globe.  In essence, more events are recorded at more points in more processes, and we are hoarders when it comes to information.  Don’t throw it away, we’ll use it someday, I swear!
 
I thing therefore I am.

Just when I thought we couldn’t create buzzwords with more ambiguity, along comes the internet of things (IoT).  After all, what internet device isn’t some kind of “thing?”  The central message here is that the internet is evolving from a medium primarily connecting people and systems.  Devices that may or may not rely on human interaction are now just as able to be the provider or consumer of information.

More unmanned internet endpoints will eventually lessen our need to be tied to our personal computing devices, especially desktop computers.
 
Better decisions, better responses

Put all these pieces together and you can see where computing is going.

• IoT means that more devices are able to capture process data, anything that can be electronically detected, and execute instructions, independently of direct human interaction. 

 

• Big Data means that all of this new information has a home.
  
  
• Cloud computing means that when it comes to creating innovative applications to analyze and exploit that data, the sky is the limit (pun not intended, but it grew on me…). 

In other words, there are more data points to crunch, and it’s easier to crunch them.  Once crunched, it is easier to act on the results.

In my view, all of these buzzword-laden concepts boil down to one driving mantra:  make better decisions and do smarter things.  It’s a standard you can demand from any technology initiative.
 
How to Serve Humans

​From the start, we at LogistiVIEW have put our emphasis on employing technology to better enable the human / computer interaction.  We are not trying to build the better decision making applications.  We are not building the Big Data solution.  We are most closely aligned with the IoT buzzword.  We capture great information and communicate directly to the human workforce via VIEW devices and the Effortless Human Interface.  Via augmented reality devices, we help our very human customers participate directly in this computing revolution.

We can be the eyes and ears, as well as the hands and feet, of those cloud based applications crunching their big data.  We can interact with IoT devices and ensure that the burdens of data capture and data consumption go to the exact right target at the exact right time.

The Internet of Things is great, but we will still use it to make life better for the Internet of Humans (IoH).  Put that one on your Buzzword Bingo card, and we’ll do our part to make sure you hear it often.