 | Issue: | 2010 |
| Article no.: | 5 | |
| Topic: | A smarter planet | |
| Author: | Clifford Foster | |
| Title: | CTO for IBM Sub-Saharan Africa & IBM Distinguished Engineer | |
| Organisation: | IBM | |
| PDF size: | 1143KB |
About author
Clifford Foster is IBM’s Chief Technology Officer for Sub-Saharan Africa. Mr Foster is a Partner in GBS (Global Business Services) IBM’s consulting arm and is one of a select few ever appointed as a Distinguished Engineer by IBM. He specialises in the financial services sector. Prior to joining IBM, Mr Foster worked with Andersen Consulting (Accenture) as part of a high-profile team that transformed the credit lending business of a large corporate bank. Mr Foster joined Andersen Consulting after selling a systems integration company he founded where he sold, built and implemented many first-of-a-kind solutions in South Africa. Mr Foster began his career as a systems engineer, designing and building a large SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system. Mr Foster was named a Fellow of the British Computer Society (CITP) in 2007. Clifford Foster earned a BSc in Computer Sciences and Mathematics from the University of Pretoria, South Africa.
Article abstract
There will soon be two billion people on the Web and a trillion interconnected objects – sensors, appliances, phones, cameras, RFID tags – and systems; people and objects will ‘speak’ to one another. Massive amounts information produced by the interaction of all those things will be analysed in real time by ‘smart systems’ that will anticipate events and proactively resolve problems before they occur. We are becoming an instrumented, interconnected, intelligent planet with smart cities, businesses, utilities and homes.
Full Article
We know the world is becoming smaller and flatter. However, something else is going on that will ultimately have a greater impact on business and society – the world is about to become smarter. Rather than referring to humanity’s collective IQ, this is about the world’s infrastructure becoming intelligent. Traditionally, we have thought about IT as the realm of data centres, software, personal com-puters and networks. Infrastructure has always been the buildings, roads and pipelines. In the past, these infrastructures and IT co-existed; now the digital and physical infrastructures of the world are converging. This convergence heralds an exciting new age, an age where technology plays a strategic role in addressing vital issues of our time, such as water shortages, energy waste and traffic jams, while driving the next wave of economic growth. Instrumented, interconnected, intelligent Consider that by 2010 there will be more than one billion transistors for every human on the planet and around 33 billion Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags in circulation. The world is becoming increasingly instrumented with sensors being embedded in all sorts of ecosystems, from hospitals to retails stores, even natural systems like rivers. The world is also becoming increasingly interconnected, with a projected two billion people on the Web by 2011 and a trillion interconnected objects – sensors, appliances, phones, cameras, RFID tags – comprising the ‘Internet of Things’ and creating a world where systems, people and objects ‘speak’ to one another. The amount of information produced by the interaction of all those things will be unprece-dented and the next step is to analyse this data in real time to create insight or intelligence. Smart systems will enable us to anticipate events and proactively make decisions that will prevent problems from happening before they occur. Smarter cities An example of such a smart system can be found in Stockholm, where a smart traffic system has reduced traffic into and out of the city by 20 per cent and cut carbon emissions by 12 per cent. At the beginning of 2006, the city implemented a free-flow road charging system using laser, camera and information technology to seamlessly detect, identify and charge vehicles, as they pass control points on the way in or out of the city centre. The system reduced congestion, thus helping to alleviate environmental damage, and helped boost productivity in Stockholm. Smarter energy Currently, between 40 and 70 per cent of energy is lost during transmission in Africa and less than 20 per cent of Africans have access to electricity for personal use, but if a significant amounts of energy can be saved the cost of providing energy to the rest will fall. Climate change, rising energy prices and technology advances have been reshaping the collective mindset of consumers, turning many ‘passive ratepayers’ into highly informed, environmentally conscious customers who want a role in using power. Now, with the emergence of the technologies that make smart grids possible, companies can provide their customers with the information and control they need to actually change their behaviour patterns and reduce usage and costs. For example, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has helped homeowners reduce energy costs by up to 10 per cent, by turning ordinary thermostats into intelligent devices tied to the grid system, which automatically control power consumption based on pricing signals and customer preference. Participants decided how much they were willing to spend, and their appliances adjusted the amount of energy they consumed in response to fluctuating prices, e.g. if the price goes up, the thermostat shifts down a few degrees. This ensured the best cost for the customer and better load balancing for the grid, reducing overall peak loads by 15 per cent. A smart grid brings intelligence to a utility system; they can also incorporate new sustainable energies such as wind and solar generation. Smarter business Consider that every week businesses waste 5.3 hours per employee because of inefficient processes. Smarter organisations are transforming their infrastructure and processes to take advantage of an instrumented, interconnected and intelligent planet. Businesses around the world are recognising that they need to reinvent their infrastructures and processes to allow their people to collaborate with each other, their customers and their partners; to foster creativity and problem solving and to enable the very act of enterprise. Smarter businesses are managing large volumes of information in real-time, incorporating ana-lytics and predictive modelling, pervasively collecting and sharing information across the entire value chain and speeding time to value by delivering trusted, accurate and timely information to the right decision makers. Taking advantage of a smarter planet However, if we are going to realise the enormous potential of a smarter planet, we have to reinvent the business and IT infrastructure of the 21st century in the same way that we industrialised our factory floors in the 20th – making it more efficient, more dynamic, less com-plex and less costly. By implementing innovative technologies such as virtualisation, cloud computing and stream processing, organisations can conserve energy, consolidate resources, and make information secure and available whenever and wherever it’s needed. Virtualisation is a powerful catalytic element to realising a smarter planet, as it can help com-panies reinvent their data centres, eliminating up to 70 per cent of their servers and 80 per cent of their floor space, reducing energy consumption and costs. Cloud computing provides IT resources and services independent of a specific physical infrastructure, and reliably delivers them to the end-user over the Internet or intranet. Stream processing technology could provide the ultimate performance: millions of messages per second with millisecond to sub-millisecond response. This is about processing information in-flight rather than from storage. Using a dynamic infrastructure, companies can integrate an intelligent business infrastructure with the necessary underlying design of a flexible, secure and seamlessly managed IT infrastructure so the organisation can respond quickly and successfully to changes as dynamically as they occur. In addition, by taking a systemic view of its value chain, including workforce, manufacturing, supply chain, IT, transportation, customers and facilities, an organisation can realise the benefits of environmental sustainability. Smart systems have the potential to enhance all aspects of our lives. Forward-thinking nations, companies and communities will leverage this to improve the lives of people, positively impact the environment and drive new business opportunities. Will you?
