IBM’s Smarter Planet strategy took a major technological step forward today with the introduction of IBM MessageSight, a new appliance designed to help organizations manage and communicate with the billions of mobile devices and sensors found in systems such as automobiles, traffic management systems, smart buildings and household appliances.
Over the next 15 years, the number of machines and sensors connected to the Internet will explode. According to IMS Research, there will be more than 22 billion web-connected devices by 2020.These new devices will generate more than 2.5 quintillion bytes of new data every day while every hour enough information is consumed by Internet traffic to fill seven million DVDs.
Building on the Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) technology, IBM MessageSight delivers the performance, value and simplicity that organizations need to accommodate the growing multitude of mobile devices and sensors. This enables large volumes of events to be processed in near real time, allowing organizations to consolidate all of the information in one place and more easily glean insights to make better business decisions. IBM MessageSight is capable of supporting one million concurrent sensors or smart devices and can scale up to thirteen million messages per second.
“When we launched our Smarter Planet strategy nearly five years ago, our strategic belief was that the world was going to be profoundly changed as it became more instrumented, interconnected and intelligent. IBM MessageSight is a major technological step forward in continuing that strategy,” said Marie Wieck, general manager, WebSphere, IBM. “Until now, no technology has been able to handle this volume of messages and devices. What’s even more exciting is that this only scratches the surface of what’s to come as we continue down this path of a Smarter Planet.”
The ability of IBM MessageSight to handle and route tremendous volumes of messages makes it ideal for use by governments and organizations looking to connect and infuse intelligence into cities and across industries such as automotive, healthcare and finance.
For instance, an automotive manufacturer can use IBM MessageSight to help manage the features and services of its automobiles. With thousands of sensors in each car, a dealer can now be notified when a “check engine” light turns on in a specific car. Based on the information transmitted by the engine sensor, the dealer could then notify the owner that there is a critical problem and they should get their car serviced immediately.
“To realize the vision of a Smarter Planet, we must first enable the universe of instrumented sensors, devices and machines to communicate more efficiently while sharing, managing and integrating large volumes of data at a rate much faster than ever before,” said Bob S. Johnson, director of development for Sprint’s Velocity Program. “We have been testing IBM MessageSight for some initial projects and are excited about the capabilities that it could help us deliver to the vehicle and beyond.”
The vast majority of the 22 billion sensors will be found in devices that are mobile. As a result, IBM MessageSight is designed to complement and extend the IBM MobileFirst offerings, now enabling a corporation to create mobile solutions, manage and monitor those mobile devices in real time. Introduced in February, IBM MobileFirst is a collection of mobile enterprise software, services, cloud and analytics capabilities that help a corporation design, deploy, secure and manage mobile strategies and apps. According to IDC, the market for mobile enterprise infrastructure software and services was $14.5 billion in 2012, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 16.3%. IDC expects this market to reach $30.9 billion in 2016.
