The Measurement Minute

The Measurement Minute with Gary Angel

 

Sampling is a fact of measurement life. Even when we aren’t consciously doing it, we’re probably sampling. And it is the nature of sampling (even when done well), to sometimes generate bad answers.

 

 

 

The Measurement Minute with Gary Angel

 

Device security in IoT is notoriously problematic. Some of this comes from absurdly bad practice including web-connected devices running Linux variants with default passwords. But while simple protections will help, putting devices in the field creates a whole new level of access that is really hard to button down.

 

 

The Measurement Minute by Gary Angel

 

There’s a cost to measurement – and not just in dollars. A trip to Banff and Jasper got me thinking about things we’d be better off not measuring.

 

 

 

The Measurement Minute by Gary Angel

 

When you put devices in the field, you open up a whole Christmas-tree full of boxes of IT problems. There is nothing – and I mean nothing – more frustrating than losing contact with your devices in the field. Because what you do? You can’t talk to them to find out what’s wrong or fix them. And rolling a truck to send out a technician is expensive. And that tech probably can’t do much either except see if a light is blinking or pull a device and send it back. So yes…Device Management is a thing.

 

 

The Measurement Minute with Gary Angel

 

If adding edge-based computing is the equivalent of making a build vs. buy decision in IoT (and it is) and if build is MUCH harder (and it is), then why would anyone ever do it? The Measurement Minute argues that a surprising number of real-world problems just aren’t solvable with out-of-the-box sensor solutions.

 

 

The Measurement Minute with Gary Angel

 

The difference between purpose-built IoT devices and deploying general-purpose Edge computing often involves you in decision that’s kind of like a traditional software Build vs. Buy. The Measurement Minute explains why that’s so and what the implications are.

 

 

The Measurement Minute with Gary Angel

 

Several Minutes have gone down into the depths of IoT, so it’s worth stepping back up to a high-level and thinking about IoT in general. The Minute explains why IoT use-cases are generally non-comparable and lays out a critical distinction in IoT device type that drives many, many real-world IoT decisions.

 

 

The Measurement Minute by Gary Angel

 

In the unending quest for regular podcast content, the Minute makes the inevitable leap into interviewing. Sad. Unless, of course, you’re being interviewed. I’m using the DA Hub as an opportunity to do something a little different with the Minute and I hope you’ll join me!

 

 

The Measurement Minute with Gary Angel

 

There’s a goodly number of analytics conferences and they each have their virtues. But if you love talking analytics, the one conference you really should attend is the DA Hub. I go every year – despite having no real sales opportunities – just because I enjoy it so much. You’ll feel the same way.

 

 

The Measurement Minute with Gary Angel

 

IDC recently forecasted that by 2025 – not too long from now – we’ll have 42 billion IoT devices in the field generating 80 Zettabytes (yeah – I had to look it up) of data. Well…big whoopee, right? But beyond the hype, a distinguishing feature of IoT devices is that their function is often to generate data. The Measurement Minute explains why that matters.