IoT, Industry 4.0 set to transform India

India is readying itself to embrace Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things in a big way. Here, Sanjay Agarwal, Technology Head, Hitachi Vantara, India, talks in detail about all the technologies that will be involved in India's digital transformation...

How is the Internet of Things changing the way the world operates, both in terms of personal IoT and Industrial IoT?

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a system of interconnected computing devices, digital machines, objects, sensors, actuators and Network Connectivity that enables these objects to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-computer interaction. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a phrase that is becoming more and more common which estimates by 2020 there will be more than 24 billion IoT devices.

• Appliances Will Do the Work for You: Things like building a grocery list; or that you could just place your order and pick it up exactly the way which you have wished for.

• The Internet Is Becoming More of an Ecosystem: As more and more devices become smart and hook into a central hub that is your life, the Internet will become more of an ecosystem. For all these devices to share information and work efficiently, they are going to have to become more and more interconnected and figure out faster and better ways to communicate with one another.

• Cloud Hosting Will Explode: The only way that the Internet can become an efficient ecosystem is using cloud hosting as it is impossible for the IoT to work without the cloud, because cloud allows your apps to follow you wherever you go.

• Healthcare Will Improve: The very nature of IoT is well-suited to healthcare as it collects and monitors data from different devices and departments, so it only makes sense that more doctors and hospitals will utilize this emerging technology to track vital statistics of their patients for more accurate diagnosis and treatment

• Digital Twins are the next step in the world of IoT. In short, the digital twin is a virtual doppelganger of the real-world things. In a software-everywhere world, Digital Twin technology will help organizations bridge the divide between physical and digital data

• Blockchain will play a vital role in enhancing security, making transactions more seamless and creating efficiencies in the supply chain. Building trust and reducing cost would be the two keys in which it will operate. IoT’s full potential will only be reached if security challenges are addressed. That requires a combination of interoperability, education & good design

• 2018’s Smart City of IoT Projects will focus on improving people’s lives in the world’s biggest metropolises. This technology will help to streamline transportation by collecting massive amounts of data regarding traffic, parking lots and public transport

• IoT projects will have the biggest influence on the retail industry which have already started using Machine Learning and IoT technology to improve their customer experience and increase their sales — both online and in-store

Q2: What are the important tools for digital transformation and how are they bringing about a change?

Digital transformation is not just about providing a better customer experience through virtual shopping channels and agile customer service, integrated with social networks. An example that has already become popular is the customer who questions the seller within a physical store if he can discount certain merchandise because the customer has just seen on the internet that the competing store sells the products at a cheaper price. Digital transformation is changing the way in which the organization produces and delivers value to the market but also to what the competition can do in that sense. Among the most used tools, the following has a major impact:

1- API Management

APIs are Internet protocols that enable the communication and exchange of data between different cloud-based tools. This allows independent developers, or even large companies, to integrate their solutions with those of other organizations, establish automated routines, new business ideals, and especially more productivity for businesses.

2- Cloud Computing

Already widely adopted by most companies and the general public, especially with the use of SaaS applications (software sold as pay-as-you-go services), this technology is essential to promote more integration and teamwork.

3- Remote access and mobility

Wherever a collaborator, customer, vendor or partner is, they can interact with your company by having a mobile device and an internet connection. This opens a huge range of possibilities that your business needs to explore.

4- Big Data

Perhaps the most complex digital transformation elements, it should not be overlooked. There are already Big Data solutions with Freemium and paid subscription models on the market.

5- Internet of Things

Also known as IoT (Internet of Things), it comprises several devices that have embedded technology, such as sensors, buttons, etc. that can connect in the cloud and transmitting data and events.

6- Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence is the ability of a machine or software to develop human-like thinking, including the ability to set standards, experiment, perceive, and make decisions intelligently.

Q3: How will this help Smart Cities and Industry 4.0?

It Takes a Community to Build a Smart City through shared business, operational, and security intelligence that helps them deliver better services, run more efficiently and be safer places to live and work. Gathering information on buildings, course attendance and social interaction can ultimately be used to improve student experience and enhance learning.

In the Hitachi Video Analytics (HVA) overview, HVA technology turns video cameras into smart city sensors that provide real-world insights for improved public safety, business intelligence, operational intelligence and greater ROI. Smart spaces and video intelligence combine the power of IOT, big data and analytics for better outcomes which support smarter operations for public safety and security, traffic and transit, airports and ports, campuses and retail. It is a one integrated view of activity, operations and safety issues with intelligence for real-time data and analysis which gather data from video cameras, IOT sensors, social media and other sources already in use.

These tools are helping the Industries to use business insights to match customer preferences – from optimal product placement to more effective messaging for enhanced customer service. This on the other hand helps to utilize loss-prevention alerts, facial recognition, social media search and other tools. Data Analytics Enables Companies to Enter the Era of Industry 4.0 where manufacturers are using advanced analytics, such as Hitachi’s Lumada IoT platform, to extract value from industrial internet of things (IIoT) data.

Manufacturers are turning to IoT technologies that combine manufacturing assets with embedded sensors, advanced analytics, artificial intelligence and cognitive computing to generate digital intelligence across the entire value stream. Lumada Applications for Industrial IoT helps to optimize asset and fleet performance through artificial intelligence, advanced analytics and data science to reduce unplanned downtime which in turn improve performance and health diagnostics of assets and predict failures in advance. Manufacturing solutions reduce unplanned downtime with real-time fault detection and traceability and minimize product defects and operating costs, while increasing production throughput.

Q4: What are the cybersecurity threats of IoT and how can we counter them?

With the rapid adoption of mobile, cloud, big data and the internet of things (IoT), cybersecurity tools need to detect potential cyber-attacks faster. To do this, you need to blend a large volume and variety of data from the applications, network and server. This creates a big data problem that is hard to solve because bringing data together from different formats, at scale, is tough.

Cybersecurity problems are data problems:

Because traditional methods of handling cybersecurity involve custom scripting and integrating multiple data sources, it’s very time-intensive to blend multiple data sources at scale. Data scientists often spend 80% of their time cleaning the data to get it ready to analyse, and only 20% of their time analysing the data.

Finding Anomalies Is Time-Consuming and Urgent:

Once you know what a security threat looks like, it’s easy to block. But how do you know what’s a threat in the first place? That’s hard, and that’s where data scientists come in to look for patterns.

The average analyst takes 205 days to detect an attack due to the huge volume and variety of data to go through. And it’s not just big data, but all kinds of messy data from all kinds of sources, including log files, web access data, and more, that are difficult to blend. It takes time to clean and blend the data.

Hitachi Vantara’s Pentaho Platform Heightens Cybersecurity

This platform enables end users like forensic analysts, cybersecurity analysts and data scientists to detect cyber threats faster by:

■Visualizing behaviour patterns that could lead to the next cyber-attack

■Automating the orchestration of data flows to prepare, blend, report and alert security data with corporate data to better understand the source of intrusion or threat

■Empowering data scientists with predictive analytics through integrated machine learning tools like R, Python and Weka

■Reducing complexity by bringing all security data into a single platform, without the deep cost to deploy, maintain and operate other cybersecurity system

Sanjay Agarwal, Technology Head, Hitachi Vantara, India