We caught up with Andrew Miller, Sr. Sales Engineer from Bit Stew Systems at Cisco Live this year. Bit Stew is a Cisco partner that focuses on the analytics space with a platform that they call 'Software Defined Operations for the Industrial Internet'. Their solution works with Cisco IOx on a number of Cisco platforms. The demonstration in this video shows just a small part of what they do, but does showcase analytics at the edge (Fog Computing) in a practical way with, in this case, an electrical utility customer.

Bit Stew's Mix Core platform automates data ingestion, applies machine intelligence to learn patterns in the data, allowing industrial companies to discover actionable insights that optimize operational performance. MIx Director? (formerly Grid Director?) is powered by the MIx Core platform, and is the application that industrial enterprises rely on for a contextual and real-time view of their operations, assets and customers.

In the Video, Andrew talks about the "Fog Computing" aspects of the MIx Director solution. With this solution running in cisco Grid routers at the edge of the network, a lot of the filtering of data can be done locally, without back-hauling to the data center or elsewhere. So long as everything is ticking along nicely, there's no need to burden central resources or comms networks with unnecessary traffic. But if something untoward should happen, then operators will get alerts and see in real time what's happening. Service crews or emergency services can be dispatched and potential disasters minimized. Well, don't let me steal too much of Andrews thunder. Watch the video to see what happens next!

You can find out more about Bit Stew and some of their key people by reading these other blogs:

• Cisco and Bit Stew Set Out to Transform the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) -One Customer at a Time. Here I talk to Bit Stew CEO Kevin Collins about the award winning company, their relationship with Cisco, and the synergy between Cisco and Bit Stew solutions.

• Listen to a recent interview with Kevin Collins and Matt Erickson of Cisco from the floor of DistribuTECH: Fog Computing Becomes Clearer with Cisco IOx Solution.

• Check out the interview with Franco Castaldini, VP, Marketing at Bit Stew Systems: Bit Stew and Cisco collaborate to bring intelligence and automation to the digital oil field

There's a great "point of View" document that talks about the business benefits of the partnership here:

Cisco and Bit Stew Point of View: Distributed Intelligence: Unlocking the benefits of the Industrial Internet.

As always, please leave comments and engage in the dialogue. Go to www.cisco.com/go/oilandgas for more information about Cisco in the oil and gas industry.