Internet Evolution Debuts 'Digital-Physical Convergence' Video Tutorial

NEW YORK, NY (Gawkwire.com) Converging IT networks and assets with other in-house systems will give companies a profound new level of visibility, control, and automation, says Doug Brown, Vice President of Marketing for the Tivoli brand of the Software Group at IBM. And this "digital-physical convergence" will accelerate service delivery and execution of key business processes, Brown adds, in a video tutorial posted today on the Internet Evolution Website.

Click here to view the tutorial:

http://www.internetevolution.com/tutorial-digital-physical-convergence.asp

"We're accustomed to thinking about how to instrument our IT systems and assets, but we need to be equally adept in thinking about how we instrument and extract insight from our physical assets," Brown advises. Organizations like city governments, overnight delivery services, and manufacturers are already reaping the benefits of networked traffic signals, bar-coded inventory, and GPS devices that feed data back for analysis and fast action.

So if heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), electrical systems, lighting, fire alarms, and video surveillance (to name a few) get networked with servers in the data center, does this mean everything is now IT's responsibility? No, says Brown, but it does imply the need for a much deeper level of partnership and collaboration between IT and the operating sides of any organization. Line-of-business leadership and operations managers should be asking themselves questions like, "Have we instrumented our operating assets sufficiently to maximize their value? Have we considered ways to manage these assets more cost-effectively or in ways that could dramatically improve service delivery? And how can IT potentially help us to achieve these goals?" Brown notes in the tutorial.

Brown encourages enterprises to consider these issues as they work toward digital-physical convergence:

    * Rather than get bogged down in what it's going to cost to integrate all these systems, consider what it will cost if you don't converge the management of business and IT infrastructure. Cost savings and improving services are the two biggest reasons to integrate IT and physical infrastructure, according to Brown.

    * IT professionals must consider new "asset types" outside the data center they might be asked to help manage someday, as well as what new skills, processes, and infrastructures they'll need to make that happen. "This is what visionary business leaders are doing to build 21st century businesses with efficient, differentiated services."

    * Digital-physical convergence can help enterprises achieve strategic "green" objectives. Richer oversight of all assets means that when service crews are deployed, for example, their routes are optimized to reduce travel time, fuel costs, and carbon footprint.

"Aggregating intelligence from across the entire business allows you to store, virtualize, replicate, and secure enterprise intelligence in ways that you couldn't if all the data were maintained in individual, disconnected silos and repositories," Brown says. "Convergence means bringing all of your assets into a modernized, 21st century management construct that can better withstand disruptive circumstances like service outages, security breaches, and labor skills deficits, among other challenges."

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