The Internet of Things Alliance Australia (IoTAA) has formed a formal liaison with the US based Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC).
IIC says that, under the agreement, it and IoTAA will work together to harmonise various aspects of the industrial internet to help improve the digital economy. IIC claims to be “the world’s leading organisation transforming business and society by accelerating the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).”
Formation of the liaison is believed to have been facilitated by IIC CTO Steve Mellor, who is a part-time resident of Sydney.
IoTAA is understood to be particularly interested in working with IIC to ensure that its work on IoT security is aligned with international IoT security initiatives and practices.
IoTAA has a number of working groups and the one on IoT security is particularly active. It has developed a Strategic Plan to Strengthen IoT Security in Australia that has been endorsed by the Prime Minister’s Cyber Security Task Force.
IIC lists planned joint activities with IoTAA as encompassing
– Collaborating on standardisation
– Realising interoperability by harmonising architecture and other elements
– Aligning work in vertical domains
– Developing benchmarks for IoT adoption
– Developing global best practices
The two have also agreed to meet regularly to exchange information and to hold joint workshops.
The collaboration has been established under the auspices of the IIC Liaison Working Group, the organisation’s gateway for formal relationships with standards and open-source organisations, consortia, alliances, certification and testing bodies and government entities/agencies.
IIC says agreement with the IoTAA is one of a number of agreements made by the group. There is a full list of around 40 is here. However only liaison with a body similar to IoTAA is that with the Russian Association of Industrial Internet.
Also, The IIC has set up a number of IoT testbeds around the world and IoTAA is understood to be particularly interested in setting up complimentary testbeds in Australia in conjunction with IIC.
The IIC website lists close to 30 testbeds. It says testbeds are a major focus and activity “where the innovation and opportunities of the Industrial Internet – new technologies, new applications, new products, new services, new processes – can be initiated, thought through, and rigorously tested to ascertain their usefulness and viability before coming to market.”
The IIC’s Testbed Working Group “accelerates the creation of testbeds for the Industrial Internet and serves as the advisory body for testbed proposal activities for our members.”
It is the centralised group that collects testbed ideas from member companies and provides the members with guidance for new testbed proposals.
