[Info-vax] VMS and the Internet of Things (IoT)

[Jan-Erik Soderholm]

Den 2016-09-11 kl. 12:16, skrev Simon Clubley:
> I've seen a number of posts recently about VMS and it's possible role
> in an Internet of Things (IoT) environment.
>
> However, it appears to me that people are talking at cross-purposes
> when talking about the IoT because the term itself is so vaguely
> defined and as such people appear to have their own differing and
> unstated assumptions about what the IoT actually is.
>
> As such, it might be a good idea if people state what they mean by
> the IoT and how they see the role that VMS has in it, because right
> now I am not seeing a major role for VMS.
>
> Here's my initial pass at defining what I think the IoT is all about
> when I hear that phrase and why I think the above about VMS:
>
> I think of the IoT as being a three level architecture with sensors
> on devices at the lowest level, some kind of coordinator or
> controller within the facility at the medium level, and remote
> servers (if needed) at the highest level.
>
> At the lowest level, the sensors on devices level, there's absolutely
> no role for VMS at all. Most of these are going to be Cortex-M0/M4
> level CPUs if even that as in some cases these might just be small
> 8-bit devices or even dumb sensors wired directly into the facility
> controller.
>
> The medium level facility controller is where things may start to get
> more interesting but I don't see a role for VMS here either even if
> you ignore that fact that VMS will not currently run on the
> architectures typically in use here.
>
> This facility controller is going to be a small low power box which
> can probably be wall mounted; think something the size of a Beaglebone
> Black or a Raspberry Pi with a box and little LCD/touch panel wrapped
> around it.
>
> It's unlikely to be some desktop sized PC box with fans going and
> consuming greater than a couple of hundred watts. Something like the
> Cortex-A8 may even be overkill for many of these controllers. Regardless,
> this is RTOS or embedded Linux territory where you can quickly put
> together a BSP for the specific SBC in use (assuming one doesn't
> already exist).
>
> Only at the highest level, the remote server level, can I begin to see
> a viable role for VMS. However, I am not seeing what VMS would bring
> to the table here over the other existing options (and please don't
> say security).
>
> Security on the IoT devices is a joke and is a joke in ways that
> changing the remote server operating system will have very little
> effect on. Some of the security issues appear to be occuring because
> of the mindset which is sometimes present when writing the software
> for these devices.
>
> So that's my take on the IoT. What's yours and where do you see a
> possible place for VMS within the IoT world ?
>
> Simon.
>

You clearly have a reasonable view of all of the above... :-)

VMS has a role in this new IoT-world, when the IoT-world
have a need for data that is already in some VMS application.

I just this Friday had a discussion with a guy who is responsable
a new cloud based solution to keep track of products world-wide.
These products can be regarded as (a kind of) IoT-devices.

We discussed what possible integrations there might be with the
prodution support system (VMS based) I'm system analyst for.

Today, more and more products have their own processors with
firmware revisions to keep track of and configuration data that
need to be know for a service organisation when product arrives
dead to the service center. If you have VMS systems that are part
of the production environment, you need these integrations.

So the answer is that VMS has a role here, when the IoT-devices
has a need for the data that the VMS system (already) can provide.