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

[Chris]

On 09/11/16 10:16, Simon Clubley wrote:

<snip>

>
> 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.
>

There's a lot of hype around this, a classic case being the front
page of the Oxford Times (Oxford, Uk) this week, which describes
a 3000 house "Futuristic City", with driverless cars and
"intelligent buildings". Then goes on to say how the buildings will
be "connected digitally", whatever that means. Pure hype to try to
sell a "follow the money" project for business, as usual, using a
few tech buzzwords to make it sound glamorous and futuristic.

A More concrete example is of course, the smart metering project
that's being rolled out across the uk. We do embedded systems
here, so it's of interest to me in terms of the technology used. All
the docs are available online, but from the spec, looks like vast
overkill just to gather gas / electricity meter readings.

In every home, the system will consist of a wireless network,
using an encrypted proprietary protocol, gas and
electricity meter collection interfaces, a user interface
box with lcd display to allow monitoring of usage etc.
Finally, a router communicating via a variety of wired and
wireless protocols to a central server. Fwics, a company has
been set up specifically to provide the server facilities. If
I were paranoid, I might think so much infrastructure overkill
was a bit creepy, but whatever :-). Of course, depending on the
available network bandwidth, one could see all kinds of future
uses, such as home security, appliance monitoring and even
(gasp) government snooping of residents. Once the
infrastructure is in place, no doubt they will find all kinds of
uses for it in the future. As most homes already have high speed
internet connectivity, one can only ask if the task could have
been done at far less cost and duplication of effort.

As for VMS, I see no roll at all. It's too expensive, functionally
deficient in many areas and arcane in it's user interface. If VSI
are really serious about making it mainstream, it must have all
mainstream computing facilities that everyone else in the industry
takes for granted these days. I really would like to see a
resurgence and the opportunity to use it again, but seems like
there's along way to go...

Chris