by Mark Benson, on June 27, 2016
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is shifting the competitive landscape for organizations big and small, fast and slow, old and new, and throughout nearly every industry. The decreasing cost of sensors, processing power, bandwidth, memory, and storage are enabling progressive companies to Internet-enable their machines and environments to take advantage of a number of opportunities to: drive new sources of revenue, decrease operational expenses, increase quality, increase market share, improve competitive positioning, better understand users, improve customer service, and increase aftermarket sales.
The currency of the era in which we now live is data, and enterprises best positioned to dominate their competitive space in the next decade are the ones that are able to capitalize on the value of data more efficiently than their peers. That phrase (capitalize on the value of data) seems so simple, yet for many organizations, it can seem unreachable (too complex, too much time, too big of a skill gap, lack of a clear business model, etc.). The truth is that building connected, industrial products is hard to do. There are a number of hurdles organizations face in the process, including technology implementation, business modeling, market timing, user experience, and organizational alignment. All of these things must be overcome in order to bring a high-quality, connected industrial system to market.
I have spent much of my career leading teams in the design and development of embedded systems and enterprise software for industrial manufacturers, and helping them integrate those technologies effectively into their teams and business processes. Those systems have included everything from traffic control systems and wearable tactical cameras, to engine trend monitors and battlefield communications platforms. Throughout all those experiences, the most striking thing to me has been not how difficult the technology problems were to solve, but how difficult it was for people and processes to change. We are creatures of habit, and organizations are made of people. Many of the change-resistant features of organizations are rooted in the change-resistant characteristics of the people that work there.
Murano, Exosite’s newest software platform, was built to help engineers and developers build connected products quickly, and do so in a way that helps their organization break free from unnecessary historical encumbrances and embrace change. Towards this end, Murano was purpose-built with the following features to enable developers:
Device connectivity and security.
With open API built on industry-standard protocols, it's easy to get devices connected to Exosite.
Provisioning and device management.
Murano has features to manage device identities, secure token-based access, and remote firmware upgrades to help you manage the entire lifecycle of device fleets, from initial manufacturing and provisioning, through commissioning, usage, and retirement.
Solutions APIs.
The Murano platform has an innovative API-as-a-service approach that lets you define a custom restful API for web and mobile applications. Instead of being constrained by a predefined API, Murano lets you define your own and encapsulate application complexity into the API, which enables you to create much simpler web and mobile applications.
Applications hosting and framework.
When it's time to build your web application, Exosite provides an easy way to deploy and scale your application within our cloud environment, all backed by the world-class Exosite support team that provides technical support and 24/7 monitoring.
Integrated services.
Murano has a pluggable services interface that allows easy connectivity into other business systems, analytics packages, or asset tracking systems. Exosite has built-in capabilities to host these integrated services and writing new ones is extremely easy to do. Murano’s services include time-series data storage, key/value storage, email notifications, SMS notifications, mobile push notifications, and more. It’s also easy to integrate additional services through Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google, or IBM Bluemix.
At Exosite, we are passionate about helping organizations break through the technology, business, market, and organizational barriers to deliver smart, connected products to the industrial market that allow people to do more with less. We have incorporated this passion and knowledge into our Murano IoT platform and professional services ecosystem.
Be sure to visit exosite.com/murano where we’ll regularly present new videos and blog content from our Inside Exosite series, featuring Exosite experts answering real customer questions about IoT. Please find us on social media and submit your own questions for our team to answer. For additional information about Murano and Exosite’s professional services, or to speak directly with an Exosite team member, see the links below.
