Apac
  • Home
  • CXO Insights
  • CIO Speaks
  • Partner Conferences
  • Newsletter
  • Subscribe
  • News
  • About us
Apac
  • Agile

    Artificial Intelligence

    Augmented Reality

    Big Data

    Blockchain

    Cloud

    Cyber Security

    DevOps

    Digital Technology

    Enterprise Security

    HPC

    Internet of Things

    IT Services

    Mobility

    Networking

    Open Source

    POS

    QA and Testing

    Robotics

    SaaS Solutions

    Security

    Simulation

    Smart City

    Startup

    Storage

    Unified Communication

    Virtualization

    Web Development

    Wireless

  • Automotive

    Aviation and Aerospace

    Banking

    Compliance

    Construction

    Contact Center

    E-Commerce

    Education

    Energy

    Engineering

    Field Service

    FinTech

    Gov and Public

    Healthcare

    Insurance

    Legal

    Logistics

    Manufacturing

    Media and Entertainment

    Metals and Mining

    Pharma and Life Science

    Retail

    Sports

    Telecom

    Travel and Hospitality

    Utilities

  • Amazon

    CISCO

    Dynamics 365

    Google

    HP

    IBM

    Intel

    Microsoft

    Microsoft Azure

    Oracle

    Red Hat

    Salesforce

    SAP

    Share Point

    VMware

  • Business Intelligence

    Business Process Management

    CEM

    Cognitive

    Collaboration

    Corporate Finance

    CRM

    Data Center

    Disaster Recovery

    Document Management Systems

    Enterprise Architecture

    Enterprise Asset Management

    Enterprise Performance Management

    ERP

    Fleet Management

    Gamification

    Geographical Information System

    HR Technology

    IT Service Management

    Managed Services

    Payments

    PLM

    Procurement

    Project Management

    Risk Management

    Sales and Marketing

    Workflow

Menu
    • Amazon
    • Banking
    • Blockchain
    • CISCO
    • Cognitive
    • Compliance
    • Contact Center
    • Cyber Security
    • DevOps
    • E-Commerce
    • Field Service
    • Gov and Public
    • Healthcare
    • HR Technology
    • IoT
    • Managed Services
    • Manufacturing
    • Metals and Mining
    • Microsoft
    • Oracle
    • Pharma and Life Science
    • Retail
    More
    Cyber Security DevOps E-Commerce Field Service Gov and Public Healthcare HR Technology IoT Managed Services Manufacturing Metals and Mining Microsoft Oracle Pharma and Life Science Retail
    ×

    Subscribe to our Newsletter

    news
    news

    Join our mailing list for the latest articles, news, and exclusive insights from prominent technology leaders

    loading
    SUBSCRIBE

    Thank You for subscribing with us. We sent you an email regarding this.

    news

    • Home
    • Construction
    Editor's Pick (1 - 4 of 8)
    left
    Construction Industry Continues to Underspend in Technology

    Isaac Sacolick, CIO, McGraw Hill Construction

    Embracing Change for IT in the Construction Sector

    Jason R. Kasch, CIO, Structural Group

    Role of Technology in 21st Century Construction

    Jason T. Burns, VP & CIO, Hunter Roberts Construction Group

    The Future of Technology in Construction

    Sam Lamonica, CIO, Rosendin Electric

    6 Technology Adaptation Lessons in Construction

    Jeff Cann, CIO & Chief Strategist, Encore Electric

    Embracing Change for IT in the Construction Sector

    Jason R. Kasch, CIO, Structural Group

     3D Printing Reforming Construction Industry

    Ron Klyn, CIO, Universal Forest Products

     The Need for Technology

    Kris Lappala,

    right

    The New Convergence Space between 'The Internet of Things' and 'Big Data'

    By Cynthia Weaver, A.V.P of IT, Walbridge

    Tweet
    content-image

    Cynthia Weaver, A.V.P of IT, Walbridge

    When you work for a construction company that’s been in business nearly 100 years, much of your world revolves around things of great physical size–heavy equipment, big stacks of building materials, and beefy data centers.

    Today, we still utilize massive earth movers and you’ll see large piles of steel beams that dot our project landscapes. But what’s missing from my world, with virtualized servers and 60 percent of our data already in the cloud, are the flashing lights and racks of data center equipment that once exempli­fied my digital dominion.

    Our migration began with a single goal: outsource com­modity applications. A few add-on applications were con­trolled first steps. They provided us with the foundation to test performance standards, web services and our cultural resolve for less customization. These first steps assured us, but made little change to server count.

    Noteworthy changes would require resource intensive tar­gets. E-mail, while generally the lifeblood of any organiza­tion, was an obvious target. Numerous cloud offerings meant secure, geo-redundant, 24 hour care and greater reliability than thinly stretched technology budgets can generally pro­vide. Our teams muscled through the frustrating changes that come when you can no longer control rules and system settings and learned to rely on never seen faces to keep us operational.

    “Cloud technologies need to be device agnostic and packaged in consumption models that match our industry ebbs and flows”

    Seasoned infrastructure and systems specialists did the heavy lifting, transitioning into exceptional application man­agers. Information technology professionals are in the busi­ness of change and career retooling should be planned and mapped out like any well planned change. Years of corporate knowledge are assets worthy of investment and companies planning that long strategic shift away from internal data centers will wisely invest in team members willing to make the change.

    We built upon our success and continued to move systems and data to the cloud. We evaluated each system request with a cloud-first mentality. Storage area networks were augmented with new gateway devices to de-duplicate data while auto­matically keeping frequently accessed

    data local. Older data is automatically migrated to the cloud and still accessible. Construction companies globally are wrestling with triple digit storage growth needs. This model gave us instant and easily managed cloud expansion options with pay-for-use options.

    Many well-established construc­tion systems, another industry trend, have been steadily assembling larger offerings by purchasing niche ap­plications. Cloud offerings are now abundant and the change toward soft­ware giants hosting their own applications is welcome news.

    For years, the rush to bring software to market, increasing complexity, and economic pressures resulted in flawed and fragile software releases from com­panies that have been slow to acknowl­edge or fix prolems. Many of them simply do not use their own systems and never experience these challenges outside of a carefully manicured test en­vironment. Support models that require companies to run the latest version of a vendor’s application, when the vendor is slow to incorporate support for releases of heavily used operating systems, desk­top applications and browsers is an un­reasonable model. Software companies, as Owner Operators, have more to lose by ignoring these problems and have much to gain by creating industry intelligent offerings that play well in their own space.

    The construction indus­try, long seen as a laggard in terms of technology, has long been wrestling with concepts like “bring your own device.” These is­sues occur each time many compa­nies come together to bring design to reality. We’re ready for these new solu­tions which are only now poised to solve our long-time problems. For that to oc­cur, cloud technologies need to be device agnostic and packaged in consumption models that match our industry ebbs and flows. They’ll be designed to keep our data secure, intact, accessible and mo­bile. They’ll understand and be designed to solve our real challenges of low band­width with fast growing file sizes based on complex models as well as the hyper-convergence between “the internet of things” and “Big Data”.

    Temporary tools will pop-up that will make it hard to keep that balance between the right tool for the job and too many tools which hinder our mobility.

    Cloud choices extend beyond tradi­tional software systems. Fully hosted cloud-based telecommunications sys­tems are maturing and ready for adop­tion. With one region migrated, we’re testing the limits of our hosted telephone system. Internet outages, a long-time hazard in our industry, sped up the test­ing of call forwarding and soft-phone apps. And, while it’s still too soon for an enterprise wide commitment, our cur­rent test has been a success with more benefits than problems.

    We’re continually bombarded with emerging cloud based systems, giving companies access to higher end capa­bilities at a lower startup cost, than ever in the past. With cloud features built into our most basic daily applications and the continuous news of data and celebrity photo leaks it’s essential to have a compre­hensive cloud strategy. Large construction companies should embrace the new tech­nologies or risk being outperformed by their mid-sized competitors.

    I’m ready for this transformation. I’m already imagining the last days of my once proud data center. It will likely be remod­eled into a new collaboration space, where our innovative teams will gather to work on the next big step into the future.

    Read Also

    Technology Evolving the Construction Site

    Technology Evolving the Construction Site

    Navigating Through the Technology Landscape of the Construction Sector

    Navigating Through the Technology Landscape of the Construction Sector

    Driving Change: How Mobile Time and Production Entry are Revolutionizing the Construction Industry

    Driving Change: How Mobile Time and Production Entry are Revolutionizing the Construction Industry

    A Construction Space Oddity, Time to Leave the Capsule

    A Construction Space Oddity, Time to Leave the Capsule

    25 Most Promising Construction Technology Solution Providers 2016

    25 Most Promising Construction Technology Solution Providers 2016

    Featured Vendors

    RTV Tools

    Jason Howden, CEO & Director

    Building Blok

    Justin Nolan, Director

    Construction Special

    Copyright © 2019 APAC CIOoutlook. All rights reserved. Registration on or use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy  |  Sitemap

    follow on linkedinfollow on twitter follow on rss
    This content is copyright protected

    However, if you would like to share the information in this article, you may use the link below:

    https://construction.apacciooutlook.com/cxoinsights/the-new-convergence-space-between-the-internet-of-things-and-big-data--nwid-749.html