Lost in the cloud? Don’t be.

Understand how much of that data you want to farm out, and how much to keep close to the operational devices.

By Bob Vavra, CFE Media January 15, 2018

Cloud computing is all the rage, and some of the allure is the ethereal nature of the name. In reality, “cloud computing” is neither nebulous or nimbus, but just a neat marketing term to explains the acres and acres of data farms popping up all over the world and how the world connects to that storage. The real challenge with cloud computing in manufacturing is understanding how much of that data you want to farm out, and how much to keep close to the operational devices. With computing speed and power increasing faster than Moore’s Law, it’s not really an issue of getting the right data at the right time. The cloud’s real benefit is being able to access that data over a long period and do some powerful analytics.

Bob Vavra is the Content Manager for Plant Engineering at CFE Media.