HRI ThingWorx Paper 24 Jan 2012

7/31/2019 HRI ThingWorx Paper 24 Jan 2012

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HarborResearch

Harbor Research was recently given the opportunity to examine a new application

development platorm that takes a rereshingly new approach to integrating smart

devices, people, systems and the physical world. ThingWorx leaprogs the current

machine-to-machine (M2M) markets noise and clutter about device connectivity

by viewing core application development, device management and collabora-

tion or smart connected systems as a uniied challenge that can be addressed by

a single, scaleable solution. In so doing, ThingWorx is re-deining the concept oconnected platorms and creating a new market meta-category.


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Technologically, the 21st Century began with a very big

bang; two major technology developments have evolvedthat are now on a path o convergenceThe Internet o

Things and The Internet o People. The collaboration

technologies collectively driving social networking and

Enterprise 2.0 and beyond are spreading throughout the Internet

driving an unprecedented wave o growth. Meanwhile, intelligent

device networking - The Internet o Things - is upon us. Billions o

devices, are currently being connected to the Internet. The types o

devices being connected today extend ar beyond the laptops and

cell phones we have become so accustomed to. Today, virtually

all products that use electricityrom toys and cofee makers to

cars and medical diagnostic machinespossess inherent data

processing capability. Any manuactured object has the potential

to be networked.

The Advent of Smart Connected Systems and Services

In its simplest form, Smart Systems is a concept in which inputfrom machines, people,sensors, video streams, maps, newsfeeds and moreis digitized and placed onto net-

works. These inputs are integrated into systems that connect people, things, processes,

and knowledge to enable collective awareness, creativity and better decision making.

We prefer Smart Connected Systems over other terms in common usenotably

M2M, which usually stands for machine-to-machinebecause it captures the pro-

found enormity of the phenomenon - something much greater in scope than just machine

connectivity.

These phenomena are not just about people communicating with people or machines

communicating with machines; it also includes people communicating with machines,

and machines communicating with people. Smart connected devices are a global andeconomic phenomenon of unprecedented scale - potentially billions if not trillions of

nodes. Soon, any device that is not networked will rapidly decrease in value, creating

even greater pressure to be online. Consider the following:

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Designing The Future o Smart Connected ThingsWhite Paper


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Today the number of connected devices on the planet is surpassing the number of

people-7+billion-dependingonyourdenitionofasensor,therearealreadymany

more sensors on earth than people;

A single large chemical plant produces more data in a day than the New York StockExchange and AMEX combined;

Estimates of data produced by the so-called Smart Grid could reach between 35 and

1000 petabytes per year.

Whatever we chose to call it -- Smart Systems or Pervasive

Computing or The Internet of Things we are referring to

digital microprocessors and sensors embedded in everyday

objects. But even this makes too many assumptions about

what the smart systems phenomenon will be. Encoded infor-

mation in physical objects is also smarteven without intrin-

sic computing ability. Seen in this way, a printed bar code, a

house key, or even the pages of a technical manual can have the status of an information

device on a network. For that matter, all of these characterizations do not even begin to

address the human-machine dimension of collaboration.

But very few people are thinking about smart connected systems on that level. Current

IT and telecom technologists are operating with outdated models of data, networking

and information management that were conceived in the mainframe and client-server

eras and cannot serve the needs of a truly connected world. Smart Systems should

automatically be understood as real-time networked information and computation, but

it isnt. The Internets most profound potential lies in the integration of smart machines,

information systems and peopleits ability to connect billions upon billions of smart sen-sors, devices, and ordinary products into a digital nervous system that will smoothly

interact with individuals and systems. The nature and behavior of a truly distributed global

information system are concerns that have yet to really take center stagenot only in

business communities, but in most technology communities, too.

Enter ThingWorx

Thispaperisaboutanimportantnewconnectedplatformoeringfrompeoplewhoare

thinking about the scope and on the scale that Smart Systems deservesThingWorx.

InouryearsofworkontheInternetofThingsphenomenonanditsreal-worldeectson

business, we have not encountered very many compelling visions about the completeintegration of things, people, systems and the real-time world. The ThingWorx team of in-

novators understand that the tools we are working with today to make products smart

on networks were not designed to handle the scope of new capabilities and interactions.

By 2020 there will bemore than 50 billionsmart devices onnetworks


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ThingWorx connected application platform is not a simple incremental improvement,

patch,Band-Aid,ornewavorofwhatwealreadydo.Theirdevelopmentrepresentsa

true shift in thinking about how devices, people and physical systems will be integrated

and how they will interact. The ThingWorx approach is not about leveraging aging IT

technologyintoanewapplicationcontext;itsaboutlookingforwardtoasingle,uniedplatform for interactions to which any PERSON or any THING can contribute, and which

liberates information interactions by abandoning traditional relational databasing and the

client-server computing model.

At the same time, taking this initiative seriously does not mean junking all current IT prac-

tice in one fell swoop. The pillars of present-day information technology will not crumble

overnight, nor has the great existing investment in them suddenly lost all value. There

arereasonable,scallysanepathsformigratingtothefuture.Butmigratewemust.The

assumptions and practices of the mainframe and PC eras are now decades old and not

suitable for the smart systems era.

Figure 1: Connected Platforms Drive Collaboration Between People, Devices & Systems

3D Collaboration

Devices

People

Systems

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M2M and Classical IT Technology Only Tells Part of the Story

Before delving into the new thinking that makes this story possible, lets talk about why

its necessary at all. The IT and telecom sectors have failed to re-evaluate their relation-

ship to advancing technology and to their constituents. The business and technology

paradigms to which these industries cling today are far too limiting, too cumbersome andtoo expensive to foster and sustain new growth.

From a Telco perspective, todays discussions of M2M systems focus almost exclusively

on communications -- the pipe -- and very little on the information value. In other words,

on things that look good to the carriers. There are many pop-

ular visions about wireless monitoring and wireless control.

Such as it is, wireless is a fantastic new advance -- no ques-

tion. But, focusing on the communication element alone as

rst-orderbusinessvalueamountstograbbingthewrong

end of the technology stick. Wireless communications alone

steals the limelight and potentially eclipses the real revolution-- utilizing new networking technologies and processes to

liberate information from sensors and intelligent devices to

leverage collective awareness and intelligence.

From an IT perspective, todays corporate IT function is a direct descendent of the com-

pany mainframe, and works on the same batched computing modelan archival mod-

el, yielding a historians perspective. Information about events is collected, stored, que-

ried, analyzed, and reported upon. But all after the fact.

Thatsaverydierentthingfromfeedingthereal-timeinputsofbillionsoftinystatema-

chines into systems that continually compare machine-state to sets of rules and then do

something on that basis. In short, for connected devices to mean anything in business,the prevailing corporate IT model has to change.

The next cycle of technology and systems development in the smart connected systems

arena is supposed to be setting the stage for a multi-year wave of growth based on the

convergence of innovations in software architectures; back-room data center operations;

wireless and broadband communications; and smaller, more powerful client devices

connected to personal, local and wide-area networks. But is it?

Whats Required....

When it comes to preparing for the global information economy of the 21st century, most

people assume that the IT and telco technologists are taking care of it. They take iton faith that the best possible designs for the future of connected things, people, sys-

tems and information will emerge from large corporations and centralized authorities. But

those are big, unfounded assumptions. In fact, most of todays entrenched players are

showing little appetite for radical departures from current practice. Yet current practice

will not serve the needs of a genuinely connected world.

The tools we are using to

make products smart on

networks today were not

designed to handle the

complexity they are beingrequired to support


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What are the major obstacles that need to be overcome?

Leveraging collective intelligence: For all its sophistication, many of todays M2M

systems are a direct descendent of the traditional cellular telephony model where

each device acts in a hub and spoke mode. The inability of todays popularenterprise systems to interoperate and perform well with distributed heterogeneous

deviceenvironmentsisasignicantobstacle.The many nodes of a network may

not be very smart in themselves, but if they are networked in a way that allows them

to connect eortlessly and interoperate

seamlessly, they begin to give rise to

complex, system-wide behavior. This

allows an entirely new order of intelligence

to emerge from the system as a whole

an intelligence that could not have been

predicted by looking at any of the nodes

individually. Whats required is to shift thefocus from simple device monitoring to a

model where device data is aggregated

into new applications to achieve true

systems intelligence.

Automated development: When

telephonesrst came into existence,all

calls were routed through switchboards

and had to be connected by a live

operator. It was long ago forecast that if

telephonetraccontinuedtogrowinthisway, soon everybody in the world would

have to be a switchboard operator. Of

course that has not happened, because

automation was built into the systems to

handle common tasks like connecting

calls. We are quickly approaching analogous circumstances with the proliferation

of smart connected devices. Each new device requires too much customization

and maintenance just to perform the same basic tasks. We must develop software

and methods to automate development and facilitate re-use, or risk constraining the

growth of this market.

Optimizing all assets - tangible and intangible: New software technologies and

applications need to help organizations address the key challenge of optimizing the

valueoftheirbalancesheets,allowingthemtomovebeyondjustnancialassetsand

liabilities to their physical assets and liabilities (like electric grids or hospitals) and then

to their intangible assets and liabilities (like a skilled workforce). The task of optimizing

Its The Application Dummy......

Given the immature state o Smart Systems, most people have

trouble understanding the important role applications will play.

Today, applications are cumbersome and complex to develop.

Whether the application is developed by the company deploying

it or a third party, they are oten custom developed which entailsa very high level o engineering complexity due to disparate data

ormats, diverse networks, dierent operating systems, and so on.

Applications are whats really required to drive growth and inorm

smart connected systems value.

It is easy to think o the ThingWorx platorm as being yet another

connectivity platorm. But its really an application development

platorm - not just unctionality or provisioning and managing de-

vice communications. As hard as it may seem to imagine, there

really are no existing application development platorms available

today specifcally designed or connected systems.

A careul examination o marketplace oerings clearly demon-strates that todays M2M sotware platorms have not kept pace

with evolving technologies, particularly application development

tools or connecting devices, people, systems and businesses.

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thevalueofnancialassets,physicalassetsandpeopleassetsrequiresnewtech-

nologies that will integrate diverse asset information in unprecedented ways to solve

more complex business problems.

Flexible, scaleable systems: IT professionals rarely talk these days about the needfor ever-evolving information services that can be made available anywhere, anytime,

for any kind of information. Instead, they talk about web services, enterprise apps and

now cloud computing. The Web stores information in one of two basic ways: utterly

unstructured, or far too rigidly structured. The unstructured way gives us typical

static Web pages, blog postings, etc., in which the basic unit of information is large,

free-form, and lacking any fundamental identity. The overly structured way involves

the use of relational database tables that impose rigid, pre-

ordained schemas on stored information. These schemas,

designed by database administrators in advance, are not at

all agile or easily extensible. Making even trivial changes to

these schemas is a cumbersome, expensive process thataects all the data inside them. Just as importantly, they

makedeep, inexible assumptionsaboutthemeaningand

context of the data they store. Both of these approaches to

data-structure enforce severe limitations on the functions

you want most in a global, pervasive-era information system:

scalability, interoperability and seamless integration of real-

time or event-driven data. The client-server model underlying

the Web greatly compounds the problem.

Some things that look easy turn out to be hard. Thats part of the strange saga of the

InternetofThingsanditsperpetualattemptstogetitselfotheground.Butsomethingsthat should be kept simple are allowed to get unnecessarily complex, and thats the

other part of the story. The drive to develop technology can inspire grandiose visions

that make simple thinking seem somehow embarrassing or not worthwhile. Thats not a

goodthingwhendeninganddeployingreal-worldtechnologytodeliverinnovation.This

is where the new values of ThingWorx platform really come into focus.

Model-Based Development Reduces Complexity and Time

The fact that a rapidly expanding range of devices have the capability to automatically

transmit information about status, performance and usage and can interact with people

and other devices anywhere in real time points to the increasing complexity of applica-

tions. This only compounds when we consider the billions or more of networked devices

that many observers are forecasting will be deployed. Some basic design principles

must be put in place to guide the development of smart connected applications.

We are reaching a

critical juncture on

the path to smartersystems where

organizations will

be crying out for

a completely new

approach


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The tools we are working with today to make products smart on networks were not

designed to handle the scope of new capabilities, the diversity of devices and the mas-

sive volume of data-points generated from device interactions.

These challenges are dilutingtheabilityoforganizationstoecientlyandeectively

managedevelopment.Therigidandfragmentednatureofsoftwareoeringsavailable

todaymakeitextremelydicult,ifnotimpossible,toleveragedesignanddevelopment

worksproutingupacrossdierentdevicedomainsandapplications.Infact,the rate

ofoperationalchangetodaysignicantlyexceedsthedesign-develop-deploycycleof

existing tools and is expected to increase 5x in 10 years. This makes increasing the pace

at which applications can be developed and deployed a critical requirement.

What is needed is a common means of connected application development that can

leverage tools across families of interrelated devices and diverse domains. What would

this entail:

Software and development tools to address a broad range of application

requirements - increasingly, customers will need a single unified framework to

design and build solutions that can interoperate across diverse data environments

and under widely differing usage scenarios;

Software and tools that allow users to quickly build their own functions, capabilities

and applications making people, devices and systems accessible as well as easily

integrated with business and operations applications. Users need to be able to

quickly integrate smart devices with new applications for analytics, usage and

on-line collaboration that are reliable, secure and scalable.

Software and tools that leverage re-use - given the scale of the Internet of Things it

will simply not be humanly possible to write all the code required without large scale

re-use and collaborative self-service participation.

We are reaching a critical juncture in market development where organizations will soon

be crying out for a completely new approach - one where the effort invested to develop

new applications can be quickly and easily utilized again and again across an ever

broader spectrum of devices, integration and interaction schemes.

Customers expect evolving software tools to be functional, ubiquitous, and easy-to-

use.Withinthisconstruct,however,thersttwoexpectationsruncountertothethird.In order to achieve all three, a new approach is required -- but what kind of approach?

The bit, the byte, and later the packet made possible the entire enterprise of digital

computing and global networking. Until the world agreed upon these basic concepts, it

wasnotpossibletomoveforward.ThenextgreatstepinITcompletelyuidinforma-

tion and fully interoperating devices, people and systemsrequires an equally simple,

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exible,anduniversalabstractionthatwillmakeinformationitselftrulyportableinboth

physical and information space, and among any conceivable information devices.

ThingWorx unique model-driven and iterative development environment allows users

to create data representations - Things - of a physical device, person or system. Theessence of an Thing is completely abstracted from its real-world embodiment and is

mutually interchangeable. Examples of things includes:

Properties: static and dynamic state data/information that are a Things real-time

projection to the world;

Services: Things can implement and invoke services;

Events: Things can generate and subscribe to events;

Streams: Things can store simple or complex activity streams;

Contained Things: Things can contain other Things; and,

Mashups: Things can have mashups bound to them.

This model-driven development approach dramatically reduces solution development

time, increases quality and fosters reusability. This model-based approach when com-

Figure 2: Connected Platform Drives New User and Customer Values

Open Interoperable Data In Multiple Parallel Formats

(Structured, Unstructured, Time-based)

Collects, Tags, And Relates Different Data TypesCreating An Operational Data Store That Becomes MoreValuable As The Quantity Of Data And The Density Of

Relationships Grows

Operates With Search-Based Information Discovery -Users Can Find Information And Discover PatternsWithout IT Specialists or Complex Data Normalization

Mashups Enables Business Users To Quickly AssembleNew Ad Hoc Application Solutions

Functionality For Collaborative User Participation For

Sharing Data and Building Applications

Instant Messaging-based Connectivity Enables Real-timeInteraction Between Devices, People, And Systems

Existing Systems(M2M & Similar)

Existing Systems Are Organized In Hub &

Spoke Manner Which Create Data Silos andPrevents Systems From Acting In An

Interoperable Manner

Application Development Is Custom and VeryComplex - Few If Any Tools For Users ToQuickly Develop Applications

Software Platforms Typically Focus On Single

Data Types Limiting Range of ExecutionProcesses

Intelligence Tools Work Off Of "Curated" DataSets Limiting The Questions That Can Be

Answered To Those Known In Advance

Scalability Limited Lack of Peer-To-PeerSchema For Data Relationships and Data Fusion

Connected CollaborativePlatforms


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bined with self-service tools that allow users to search for information and mashup simple

workspaces results in a 5X increase in solution development velocity.

Data Equality Drives User Innovation and Collective Intelligence

In todays world, information is not free (and thats free as in freedom, not free as in

free of charge). In fact, thanks to present information architectures, its not free to easily

merge with other information and enable any kind of search-based intelligence.

What would truly liberated information be like? It might help to think of the atoms and

molecules of the physical world. They have distinct identities, of course, but they are also

capableofbondingwithotheratomsandmoleculestocreateentirelydierentkindsof

matter. Often this bonding requires special circumstances, such as extreme heat or pres-

sure, but not always.

In the world of information, such bonding is not all that easy. Todays software platformsfocus on execution processes that generate one of three types of data - unstructured,

transactionalortimeseries.Foreachofthesedatatypes,aspecicsetofintelligence

tools have evolved to provide insight but, in most cases, these tools limit the questions

that can be answered to those known in advance. So for a user attempting to do some-

thing as simple as asking a certain multi-dimensional question, creating new information

from multiple data types that is an easily perceivable, manipulable, or mappable model

oftheanswertothatquestionisasignicantchallenge.

The ThingWorx platform fundamentally changes this para-

digm, treating data from things, people, systems and the

physical world as augmented representations. In other

words, treating diverse data types equally. This enables

processes connecting diverse data in any combination to be

rapidly built and deployed.

The traditional approaches to data discovery and systems

intelligence have two failings: they cant provide a holistic

view of these diverse data types and, the types of intelli-

gence tools available to users are, at best, arcane and typi-

cally limited in use to specialists.

ThingWorx brings search-based intelligence to the world of connected things. Their

platform includes a tool called SQUEAL which is a search, query and analysis toolthat acts on unstructured, transactional and time-based data simultaneously. Users can

useSQUEALtondinformationanddiscoverpatternsontheirown,withoutrequiring

specialists or IT support. This allows users to determine where deeper analytics or the

creation of an ad hoc business process can add value.

Facilitating search-based

discovery, enabled bydata and information

accessibility and cumulative

systems intelligence, is a

fundamental requirement for

next generation platforms

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Given the immature state of todays real-world systems, most people have trouble grasp-

ing the power and importance these capabilities enable. The ability to detect patterns in

data is the holy grail of smart systems and The Internet of Things because it allows not

only patterns but a whole higher order of intelligence to emerge from large collections ofordinary data. The implications are obviously immense.

ThingWorxusesanentirelynewapproachthatavoidstheconnementsandlimitations

ofthetodaysdieringdatatypesandtools.Itallowsdatatomaintaintheirfundamental

identity while bonding freely with other data. Facilitating discovery, based on data and

information accessibility and cumulative systems intelligence, is one of the fundamental

purposes of ThingWorx platform. They are designing a system for a genuinely connected

worldinwhichtherearenoarticialbarriersbetweenpiecesofinformation.

Collaborative Futures

At the end of the day, the convergence of collaborative systems and machine to machinecommunications implies a total paradigm-shift in IT. The depth of this shift has begun to

suggest itself, but it is by no means accomplished. Its a shift from knowing what hap-

pened to knowing what is happeningall the timeand then automatically controlling

systems and assets with that knowledge.

For businesses to really succeed at community building, they will need to fully embrace

thereal-timebenetsofcollaborationtechnologies.Collaborationdemandsthatwede-

sign not only devices and networks but also information interactions in ways not ad-

dressed by classical enterprise applications and systems today. To address this chal-

lenge, ThingWorx includes integral collaboration elements, including discussion forums,

blogs and wikis, to capture and codify tribal knowledge.

The intersection of Enterprise 2.0 and the Internet of Things creates value at two disparate

ends of the business spectrum. The adoption of Web 2.0 social networking and collab-

orative software for businesses is creating new value for businesses, driven from social

collaboration between employees, partners, customers and suppliers. On the other end,

the rise of the Internet of Things has helped transform manufacturing companies into

value-added service companies. Manufacturers are learning that by putting products

on networks they are essentially placing themselves into continuous contact with their

customers, thereby enabling them to better understand their customers needs and act

appropriately. The intersection of these two emerging trends creates an opportunity for

business users/developers and OEMs to evolve their business model and drive com-

petitivedierentiationbycleverlycombiningthecollaborationtoolsandenvironmentofa

common enterprise social networking platform with the ability to support remote devices,

machines, and people as peer members of the community.


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The Internet and new collaboration technologies are allowing companies and their cus-

tomers to interact with unprecedented levels of richness. This collaboration can come

in many forms, from an end user and call center operator working together to solve a

problem with a piece of equipment, to a service engineer devising optimized methods

to streamline repetitive tasks, or a customer working with a service or product design

engineertodesignanewandimprovedpieceofequipment.Thesecollaborativeeorts

often lead to new innovative solutions that create long-term value for the OEM, the user

and all the value adders involved in its use. Relational capital, that which grows from cus-

tomerintimacyandcollaborationwilldenenewrulesofcompetition.

Examples of next generation interaction between intelligent devices and humans are

plentiful. But to fully understand the true power of collaborative technology in the context

of smart systems, applications must be realized on a large

scale. The next chapter of this story will require a sophisticat-

ed platform that allows edge devicesbe they business, or

consumer, human or machine, operated wirelessly or wired,host-based or cloud enabledto participate in coordinated

knowledge sharing, problem solving, and transactions that

span dynamically created communities.

This will take personalization to another level, turning things

into learning machines that can be trained to know a users

habits and behaviors. Based on a humans needs (e.g. a

user,xer,designer,etc.), intelligentdeviceswillbeableto

infer needs and deliver highly individualized content without

requiring a user to search, or in many cases to think about.

While these new tools are inherently disruptive and sometimes challenge an organization

and its culture, they are not technically complex to implement. Rather, they are a relatively

lightweight overlay to the existing infrastructure and do not necessarily require complex

technology integration. An example device integration package for such a community

includes the ability to chat with the device to request status and execute commands,

theabilitytoshareles,theabilityforthedevicetoblogtoitscommunityhomepageor

send updates to a feed, and the ability to establish a direct peer-to-peer (P2P) connection

to a device for remote desktop or more specialized diagnostics.

ThingWorx platform innovation recognizes that valuable data can be stored in many loca-

tionsinmanydierentformatsandthatakeyfunctionistheabilitytoaggregatediverse

data types from many sources as well as the ability to provide data feeds to other existingenterprise applications, knowledge bases, and customer portals.

Finally, one other very important aspect of collaborative systems are their openness,

which allows anyone to create applications that can be subscribed to and used by other

members of the community. These applications may be horizontally focused, such as a

predictivemaintenanceanalysispackage,orverticalapplicationsfocusedonspecic

The convergence of

device applications andcollaboration creates an

opportunity for users and

customers to interact

with unprecedented

levels of richness

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markets. The fact that these systems can be completely open provides third party In-

dependent Software Vendors (ISVs) with access to a customer base that they otherwise

may not have been able to viably approach and eliminates the burden on them having

to deal with gaining access to critical device information. Open platform-based develop-

ment has proven itself as powerful mode of innovation and development.

Getting There First.....But To Where

Though their business models are intermingling today, all of the major categories of sup-

pliers in the traditional so-called M2M software arena have historically operated within

well-established assumptions about product scope and business models. No one would

characterize the existing players of being technology or business model innovators or

disruptive in nature.

Radical new thinking about information technology must begin

at the most basic levels, with new conceptions about the interac-tions of information with people, systems and devices. ThingWorx

teamisfutureproongtheirinnovationsbymakingthefewestpos-

sible assumptions about the nature of networked objects and the

data they produce, carry or process - the company takes a much

broader, all-encompassing view of information. Ultimately, this

type of platform solution will alter traditional business models and

how new applications are realized.

Sinceallofthisthatwearedescribingisaradicaldeparturefromcurrentplatformoer-

ings and business practices, and is driven by a very unique set of needs, it stands to

reason that this type of solution does not fall within the narrow specialties of the existing

players. In fact, the platform being described is probably best viewed as an entirely new

market category. This is particularly true given the disjointed patchwork of device solu-

tions presently in place and the apparent lack of vision from existing players of whats

required in the future. The opportunity to lead in developing and shaping this market

lookswideopentoplayerslikeThingWorxbecausetheyhaveguredouthowtosolve

tomorrows challenges as well as todays.

No one would

characterize theexisting market players

as business model

innovators or disruptors

About Harbor Research

Founded in 1984, Harbor Research Inc. has more than twenty ve years of experience in providing strategic consulting

and research services that enable our clients to understand and capitalize on emergent and disruptive opportunities driven

by information and communications technology. The rm has established a unique competence in developing business

models and strategy for the convergence of pervasive computing, global networking and smart systems.

2012 Harbor Research, Inc. All rights reserved


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Documents

HRI ThingWorx Paper 24 Jan 2012