Cisco, Emerson hit the right notes in Nashville

It’s the second day of 2019 Emerson Exchange for the Americas here in Music City USA, where my Cisco colleagues and I have been actively meeting attendees at the Cisco booth. We’ve decided that Nashville is a fitting venue for discussing the Cisco-Emerson partnership – collaboration that harmonizes the strengths of the IoT networking and cybersecurity leader with those of the leader in operations technology.

During the event, it’s been energizing to talk with plant managers and other industrial leaders about how Cisco and Emerson are turning up the volume on data collection, plant productivity, and worker safety. Many of these customers are responsible for operating oil refineries, chemical plants and other hazardous locations – where temperatures are extreme and volatile materials create dangerous conditions. They recognize the potential value of deploying Emerson’s IoT sensors and other devices throughout their environments, and they know that Emerson offers products not just for remotely monitoring but also for controlling equipment and other infrastructure.

In these environments, Emerson’s industrial connected services with their IoT sensors can help improve visibility to problems before they become difficult to solve. They can help identify potentially dangerous scenarios without deploying workers and putting their safety at risk. They can also eliminate manual monitoring and reporting that drive up labor costs. Across the board, these solutions enable real-time analytics for improving safety, efficiency and productivity.

Although traditional networking solutions aren’t designed to perform in these environments, Cisco and Emerson are making it possible to deploy fully wireless industrial IoT solutions in even the largest of hazardous environments. Call it the perfect “duet”: the next-generation WirelessHART gateway, the Emerson Wireless 1410S, fully integrates with Cisco Catalyst IW6300 Heavy Duty Series Access Points, which are purpose-built to deliver the highest standards of Wi-Fi performance in environments with Class 1 Division 2 certification.

In short, Emerson’s gateways collect data from thousands of sensors in the field, while Cisco’s access points “translate” it for the wider network so the data can come to life in Emerson’s Plantweb applications.

This combination creates a resilient wireless mesh architecture that connects Emerson’s IoT sensors with reporting and management dashboards – securely and reliably. It also means that operational technology now benefits from Cisco’s intent-based networking and security capabilities that both strengthen and simplify management.

If you’re here in Nashville, too, be sure to stop by and see us at the Cisco booth. Either way, take some time to tune in to what’s possible with Cisco and Emerson.