Sensor networks inch toward IT infrastructure

Stand-alone processes and networks that hail from the industrial, manufacturing, and facilities sides of the business are destined to merge onto the IT infrastructure.

In the radio frequency identification area, for example, companies like Reva Systems and Cisco are helping bring supply-chain tracking information collected by RFID tags into upstream ERP and other applications. They use controllers or switch/router blades, respectively, with middleware and IP communication to merge RFID reader networks with corporate Ethernet networks.

Similarly, “islands” of wireless sensor networks now can join the corporate IT infrastructure. One motivator is to use sensor data to help comply with overall operating regulations that span the facilities and IT disciplines.

This week, for example, start-up Arch Rock intends to announce it is shipping a $4,995 wireless sensor network package that the firm says will allow companies to deploy, in an hour, sensor network pilots that integrate with enterprise applications in the form of Web services. According to the company, IT personnel can create custom applications for monitoring physical conditions without embedded programming. One application might be to granularly measure variations in temperature and humidity in the corporate data center to optimize conditions while minimizing HVAC costs, says Roland Acra, Arch Rock CEO.

Wireless sensor networks today use long-life, low-power motes (tiny self-contained packages with processor, memory, collections of sensors, battery and mesh communications capabilities) to monitor physical and environmental conditions, such as the status of machinery in factories. Motes allow timely measurement readings under harsh conditions, such as in chemical plants and refineries, without wiring. Wiring can be expensive - if not impossible - in certain places, such as on noisy, vibrating oil rigs where pumps and compressors need continual monitoring. Motes operate, in part, as tiny wireless IP routers to alleviate the cabling burden.