An octopus has three hearts, eight arms, an ink sac which it uses to breathe, feed and swim, and bamboozle its predators. But unlike the human brain which acts as the central controller, octopus intelligence is distributed over a network of neurons, a little bit like the internet. More than half of its 500 million nervous system cells are in the arms, bequeathing the cephalopod with the unique freedom for its limbs to either act separately or in coordination with each other. Cognizant of this fact, a team of IoT and security specialists wanted to nudge their technology prowess and leverage the octopus’s abilities in a platform which can profusely handle a smart city and its multiple tasks. Headquartered in Bnei Brak, Israel, Octopus Systems’ IoT platform not only does multi-tasking, but can also integrate to any existing legacy systems while scaling up with new IoT systems, thus providing a city with a future-proof management system.
The rise of smart cities has encouraged the need of IoT systems and technologies which in-turn incited a huge influx of newly built applications. However, lack of standardization in communication protocols and integration API’s coerce each solution to work separately, creating a massive void when centrally managing several IoT applications simultaneously. Several applications viz. smart light, solid waste management, HVAC, parking systems, city surveillance yield massive data which require correlation between each systems, central management and an unified BI dashboard. Octopus systems’ IoT platform meticulously deals with these challenges leveraging its open architecture system with an API server that can integrate to any type of system and protocol with a common operational picture of all integrated devices. This allows organizations to operate a cost effective control center and reduce the amount of human resource required to maintain the infrastructure.
Moreover, the Octopus platform has a multi-tenancy architecture, supporting deployments for large organizations which have multiple sites and assets. The platform is supported by a rich GUI which can present all IoT sensor layers either on a geo-coordinated GIS map, or on a 2D floor plan map, or on a dynamic 3D indoor and outdoor model for even more advanced visual orientation and control. Furthermore, it has a built-in cyber agent module, which can be installed on end-points such as servers and PCs, to enforce organizational information security policies and to protect the organization’s intellectual property from data loss, insider threats and fraud.
Octopus’s success stories span across several companies, creating a ripple effect and helping the platform become the word-of-mouth in the smart city solution landscape. In one of its engagements, Octopus Systems was instrumental when it helped a leading Israeli civil construction company—Electra. The client was in a dire need of a cloud-based smart facility management system that could integrate, control and monitor their newly built 5 towers remotely from their main HQ. These towers were equipped with IoT devices, smart power and water management, smart lighting, smart cleaning systems, controllable machines and sensors, security and safety systems, parking and gate systems. Octopus developed a vendor agnostic cloud-hosted solution that can run locally at each facility, but can also be managed from the company’s HQ. This unique system integration helped Electra curb utility costs by 20% and save $150K a year in operational costs.
Octopus’s unique ideology of not pursuing patents but being laser-focused on bringing ‘first-to-market’ innovations for its customers, has given the company a winning edge in the market. This is the second year in a row, Octopus Systems has been selected by Frost and Sullivan as the best integrated command and control system in the global market today. Recently, Octopus is fortifying its IoT real data management, and converged physical security and cyber security solutions.
