The EdgeX Foundry community is comprised of a diverse set of member companies that represent the IoT ecosystem. The Member Spotlight blog series highlights these members and how they are contributing to and leveraging open source solutions. Today, we sat down with Larry Andriunas, President of Kodaro, to discuss analytics, the EdgeX ecosystem and the role software plays in the Internet of Things.
What does your company do and what is your your role?
Kodaro is a building software company primarily aimed at helping contractors and controls companies find value in building data from the edge to the cloud. We’re a company of engineers and computer programmers who believe building analytics should empower people to solve problems and make facilities more efficient. In addition to Analytics as a Service, analytics rules packages, and cloud hosting services, we make a variety of products to integrate and expand the capabilities of the Dell Edge Gateways for building systems. I’m the Founding President of Kodaro, overseeing the team as we unpack building data and turn it into actionable information for building controls managers.
Why is your company investing in the IoT ecosystem?
In a very short time the IoT has gone from something people whisper about to a keyword at the heart of countless analyst reports from here to Dubai. This has been driven by consumer-facing sectors like smart home devices and wearable technologies and we in the buildings industry are realizing it’s only a matter of time before all those people and all those devices impact the way we operate buildings. We’re investing in the IoT ecosystem because we believe that buildings of the future are connected and full of data that adds value, through energy savings, increased occupant comfort, equipment longevity and better connections.
How has IoT impacted your company? What benefits have you seen or what do you expect to achieve?
The IoT essentially is our company. Without a network of connected devices transmitting data within and between each other, we couldn’t do what we do. Some of our software facilitates the data transfer, others translate and analyze the data once it gets to where it needs to go. As building controls and integrators advance into this open and connected world we as a software company will be able to find, understand and act on more information about what’s happening in buildings than ever before.
Businesses currently have to invest a lot of time and energy into developing their own edge computing solutions. What are some of the business or technical challenges you have faced when adopting edge computing technologies? How have you overcome them?
As a software company in building automation, we’re often working between hardware and third-party applications. Each piece operates at opposite edges, and in many cases they use different languages or frameworks to conduct similar operations. So, much of our time and energy is spent bridging those gaps with software. One exciting example is our machine learning algorithms that automatically tag data so that it can be integrated into the building automation system more quickly and cost effectively.
Why did your company join EdgeX?
By creating an open source community, we believe EdgeX will attract the best minds to solve the most complex problems of the IoT. As a software company for the IoT, it was important that we part of the team that’s stitching it all together.
EdgeX Foundry Ecosystem
How are you going to use the framework?
We plan to deploy the EdgeX Framework from edge to cloud to create easier, faster connectivity so that we can better run data analytics in building systems.
Where do you see enterprise and industrial IoT in 20 years?
IoT is now compartmentalized into homes, buildings, industrials. In 20 years, I see seamless integration across verticals. Our lives will be integrated into buildings, buildings will be integrated into cities and so on. As the IoT advances, it will change how our lives are connected.
