| |March 20199CIOReviewStart small and develop projects to build experience and confidence, develop pilots, focus on asset monitoring across single asset type like high voltage or medium voltage gridsadoption of cloud computing is providing Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) in a consolidated and cost-effective manner. Smart devices and services using AI technologies in the consumer space like Alexa, Siri, Face recognition, Algorithm based financial advisor and others are rapidly being adopted in the consumer space leading to diffusion of this technology to other domains.Earlier cost of IoT solution was high but due to above there has been a significant reduction in cost and increase in performance which has led to a sustained emergence of IoT.IoT is characterized by the convergence of enterprise ICT (IT) and operational technology (OT). The two systems have been merged and leveraged in a meaningful way to realize fully the objectives of the business. Enterprise IT helps to manage the value chain, reduce cost and improve customer service through huge advances in resource planning, customer relationships, management, decision support systems etc. Operational technology (OT) has been in use for improving yield, quality and efficiency through its use in factory and process automation. Operational technologies like PLC, SCADA, Process Automation etc. are being widely used.The Internet of Things ­ Solution Architecture A typical solution architecture contains these components Connected Products, Edge control, Apps, Analytics and services. Apart from the first two components the IoT industry has standardized on a cloud based PaaS architecture for the remaining components. IBM-Bluemix-IoT, MicrosoftAzure-IoT and SAP HANA-IoT, Schneider Electric ­ EcoStruxure are examples of PaaS customized for IoT. A typical PaaS with six Architectures from Schneider electric is shown in the picture.Along with the promises which IoT brings there are some challenges too in the adoption of IoT and the key ones include, among others, financial constraints- often large investments could be required to modernise the energy infrastructure and achieve the benefits of IoT. A possible way forward could be to start small and develop projects to build experience and confidence, develop pilots, focus on asset monitoring across single asset type like high voltage or medium voltage grids. Another challenge could be the lack of availability of skills for realising the full benefits of IoT, however in India we already have a large pool of people in IT and OT industry and it will be easy for them to add additional skills which will help them scale up in the IoT driven world. This will help gain higher efficiencies and reliability keeping the overall cost low. The way forward would be to have capacity building and knowledge transfer as focus areas. This will ensure that skill development is an essential part of the transformation. (Source: Schneider Electric)(Source: Schneider Electric)
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