IBM and Cisco are taking IoT analytics to the edge

The Internet of Things is no good without a way to act on the data it generates. A new partnership between two of the biggest IoT players promises to put smart collection and advanced analysis of data right where it’s needed.

IBM and Cisco Systems have worked out how to run components of IBM’s Watson IoT analytics on Cisco edge devices. This will bring more intelligence closer to where the action is, helping enterprises run things like factories and oil rigs more efficiently.

In 2014, Cisco unveiled small routers and switches that could be embedded in facilities and vehicles located far from any data center. The devices could take in data from local sensors and analyze it on site with a small, built-in Linux computer. Among other things, this "fog computing" system could decide what data was interesting enough to send to the cloud and what could just be thrown away.

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