The convergence of Operational Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT) is becoming more important now than ever -and that sentiment was heard loud and clear at last week's complementary Cisco Live Melbourne and Rockwell Automation ConnectED events. Held for the first time under the same roof, the two events provided a unique opportunity for end users to learn how to accelerate industrial business performance in a joint experience.

Attendees to both events alike enjoyed seeing examples of industrial technology in action such as the Connected Vineyard demo, which I had the pleasure of demonstrating to customers in the Cisco Live World of Solutions.

In the demo, we discussed how to add business value on top of sensor information. For example, the images below show sensor information in an easy-to-read dashboard that can help us troubleshoot potential issues before they affect the bottom line.

Below, we see that we are behind in our irrigation levels and are on the trajectory to fall behind on production. Even if wecouldhit production, the wine's famous flavor could be missed -a crucial factor in sales.

Today, most vineyards track this data; however, by sharing this data in the cloud, we are able to share business insights with other vineyards and work to stabilize production and optimize business insights all through these IoT connections.

For example, here we could search a vineyard in Italy that has a similar grape profile to see if they had an overage in production. Because our vineyard is going to miss production projections, we could purchase that vineyard's overage allowing for stabilized revenues for both players. By the simple act of combining this information, we are able to create new value for the industry.

Attendees were very interested in the concept and agreed there was value (yes, this was before they sampled the wines). In fact, several attendees in the wine industry discussed their interest in getting involved in this type of initiative, which begs a bigger question: Where could your industry add value to data that already exists? Cheers!