Data Backup Digest

A term that still lives in relatively obscurity, The Internet of Things, or IoT, refers to a concept that describes the current network of physical objects, including various electronic devices, software systems and more, which gather and transmit data between one another. However, as the world starts to rely more heavily on mobile connectivity, Internet access and the ability to quickly exchange information, networks such as The Internet of Things are gaining more steam.

One company that has recently embraced The Internet of Things, Salesforce, has unveiled their own IoT Cloud, which is meant to facilitate data storage on behalf of billions of IoT-connected devices, software systems and network resources.

However, Salesforce’s IoT Cloud doesn’t just store this information. Instead, it uses a highly technical and studious process of data analysis that operates in real-time to dissect and disseminate valuable market data. The results can help to shape the future of product development, new service offerings and more. Such data can also help companies become more customer-focused by responding to specific customer complaints, desires or praise.

Adam Bosworth, vice president with Salesforce, talked about the IoT and its importance in the 21st century. He said in a recent blog post: “Devices in the Internet of Things are at the core of this transformation. They generate massive amounts of data and companies have started to capture and store billions of data events every day. But storing it isn't enough. This revolution is about proactively engaging computers and people to resolve issues or grab opportunities. Responses must be intelligent, actionable, personal, and in real-time.”

Bosworth’s blog post continued by saying: “Our focus is delivering tools to help our customers do anything. And not just the serious developers. We want to empower every business user and analyst to solve big problems around big data too. We recognize that what our customers need is an application that is truly intelligent, caring, and proactive, because that is what their customers want. This is true for every industry and every size of company.”

Powered by an architecture referred to as Thunder, which is a proprietary Salesforce processing engine, the Salesforce IoT Cloud provides an adequate method for handling and processing the growing amounts of data that is generated by companies today. Considering the forecasted growth of The Internet of Things, the need to deal with large amounts of data will be quite widespread in coming years. While these predictions vary greatly, some say the IoT may comprise as many as 75 billion devices by the year 2020. Contrast this to approximately 25 billion devices that currently reside in the IoT, and you can see just how great the need will be.

Apart from IoT connectivity, the Salesforce IoT Cloud also provides enterprises with easy access to policy creation and data management, thereby offering a high amount of customization. The solution works in tandem with the Salesforce Customer Success Platform and it can even be used with Salesforce’s Sales Cloud or Marketing Cloud architectures to strengthen big data analytics, processing and management even further.