ParStream Launches Analytics Platform for IoT Environments

How to Monetize Data in Five Steps

The Internet of Things (IoT) has clearly captured almost everyone’s imagination, but what many people forget is that all the data that IoT systems generate are only a means to an end. The real goal is to turn all that data into something resembling actionable intelligence. With that goal in mind, ParStream has launched what it calls the first analytics platform built specifically for IoT environments.

Built on top of a Geo-Distributed Analytics Server, ParStream CEO Peter Jensen says the querying engine based on a columnar database developed by ParStream has a footprint of only 50MB. That’s critical in IoT environments because it means the ParStream analytics platform can be deployed where data is being collected versus requiring organizations to continually transfer data back to a centralized data warehouse environment, says Jensen.

Compatible with SQL, organizations can then query the ParStream Analytics Server to access data that has been aggregated using the Vibe virtual data machine technology from Informatica. The result of those analytics can then be fed into data visualization tools from Datawatch.

Jensen says IoT applications require access to an analytics engine that is optimized for streaming data that often needs to be time-stamped. Designed from the ground up to support those applications, Jensen says that approach allows ParStream to correlate analytics based on both historical and real-time data to provide actionable insights.

There’s no doubt that massive IoT and Big Data investments will be made in the years ahead. The only real question is to what degree IT organizations want to build out all that infrastructure themselves versus acquiring components that should help them get value out of those investments a whole lot faster.