New IBM Software Uses Sensor Data To Trigger Automated Processes

IBM has introduced software that extracts actionable business information from the numerous interconnected sensors that link items in the physical world. Using WebSphere Sensor Events software, massive volumes of sensor data can be gathered and analysed to provide clients with the business visibility needed to quickly respond to changing market conditions.

Sensors are part of our everyday lives, used in objects such as lights that dim and brighten depending on the level of darkness and in thermometers, which react to changes in temperature. Today, many kinds of sensors are used to monitor and manage water flow rates, highway traffic, seismic activity, air quality, the flow of energy across power grids, and much more. In particular, the use of Radio Frequency Identification sensors is growing for the purpose of item tracking and authentication. By 2010, approximately six billion of these tags will be in circulation.

WebSphere Sensor Events captures data from sensors and automates a reaction by a business system following a set of rules or events. The software spans the entire spectrum of clients’ solution requirements, from capturing information from sensing devices to connecting with systems for analytics, business process management and managing information technology and physical assets.

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Using WebSphere Sensor Events, clients gain access to the intelligence they need to better predict and react to everyday business events.

“Sensors serve as an instrument for giving a voice to physical objects, allowing them to communicate important information in an increasingly interconnected world,” said Martin Wildberger, vice president, IBM sensor solutions. “By capturing and analysing information from sensors, clients are infusing their operations with new levels of intelligence and agility.”

WebSphere Sensor Events includes business event processing technology IBM obtained from its acquisition of AptSoft Corporation in 2008 as well as business process management and events management capabilities from WebSphere and Tivoli software. The product’s user interface makes it easy for businesses to change the decision parameters they are using to act upon sensor data so that they are never locked into a single way of responding to a given situation. In addition to events management, IBM’s business process management offerings include business rules technology that governs decision-making around a variety of business challenges such as scheduling, budgets, and deadlines. The product will provide clients with data that can be accessed by IBM’s recently introduced Smart Analytics System as well as IBM Cognos software.