AT&T and IBM have partnered on a new IoT analytics solution which combines AT&T's IoT solutions and IBM Cloud to improve enterprise customer's ability to quickly analyze industrial IoT data and implement faster improvements to their business operations.

The impetus behind the development of this new technology stemmed from business customers' demand for faster data generation from IoT devices as well as rapid, meaningful analysis to make near real-time decisions for process improvements. (See AT&T Introduces IoT Solution Powered by IBM Watson on the Cloud.)

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"This is the latest step in us continuing to expand this relationship [with IBM] and working on how we can leverage the data that's coming off of these devices and create an analytics-as-a-service solution combining the IBM Watson capability sets with our capability sets at AT&T to provide those real meaningful insights across a number of vertical solutions," said Chris Penrose, president of IoT Solutions at AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), in an interview with Light Reading. (See IBM to Use AT&T Flexware.)

AT&T has connected over 30 million IoT devices globally on its network, and with the new IoT analytics solution, customers can not only connect devices, but also take action and gain insight on transforming their business, reduce costs and create new revenue opportunities, said Penrose.

The new combined technology from AT&T and IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) provides enterprise developers with an end-to-end cloud solution for developing and deploying their IoT applications, and utilizes machine learning and open-source technology to more accurately predict potential equipment malfunctions, for example.

Customers from a variety of verticals can utilize the technology for uses like detecting anomalies and predicting potential malfunctions in oil and gas wells, analyzing error codes in connected vending machines and determining if the machine is in an ideal location, and monitoring pallet and product location in real-time. The technology isn't limited to industrial IoT applications, and can be utilized in other verticals such as healthcare, said Penrose.

"A lot of this, whether it's in heavy equipment machinery or asset tracking, all of these spaces where you get can information off the machine to know if it is operating effectively, potentially diagnose the issue and predict future issues, are great areas of opportunity and we're mining that data to make it a better solution," said Penrose.

According to the release, the new analytics technology uses AT&T's M2X, Flow Designer and Control Center; the IBM Watson IoT portfolio and Data Platform; and IBM's Machine Learning Service.

— Kelsey Kusterer Ziser, Editor, Upskill U