Telstra has signed a three-year contract with Software AG under which it will expand the functionality of its IoT offerings based on Software AG’s Cumulocity IoT platform using Software AG’s Apama streaming analytics and machine learning products.
Telstra expects to offer additional features, co-developed with Software AG, during 2020.
The latest initiative follows Telstra and Software AG co-developing, in 2019, a water management system that combined Cumulocity with Telstra’s NB-IoT network.
In 2019, West Australian water corporation Busselton Water worked with Telstra and Software AG to install Telstra digital water meters and trial the solution.
However Telstra’s use of Cumulocity goes back much further. In a note posted on its web site in late 2016 Telstra said it had chosen to partner with Cumulocity— then an independent company — because it was an “award winning IoT platform provider (Frost and Sullivan) that has been rated as the most open and developer friendly (MachNation) across many players in the IoT platform market.”
Software AG acquired Cumulocity in March 2017 and brought the Cumulocity IoT platform to Australia in March 2018 following release of a new version.
Water savings from real time management
Software AG’s head of IoT ANZ, Tony Drewitt, said the Telstra/Cumulocity product was giving utility providers real-time water management and greater operational insights, allowing them to make informed decisions and make significant savings.
Drewitt said: “Our water management platform can save water through leak detection but also reduce energy consumption and the carbon footprint of a water utility which is key to reducing the impacts of climate change.”
In Bundaberg, according to Software AG, digital meters and Telstra Captis IoT devices are now detecting measurements from the field, including flow rates in the network, pressure and temperature.
Software AG said it would continue to develop the solution with Telstra and Busselton Water throughout 2020
Telstra’s global IoT solutions executive, Gerhard Loots, said the system used advanced analytics to detect leaks and pressure drops in water infrastructure and provide more detailed water consumption information to benefit the utility and the end customer.
Captis is Telstra’s brand name its environment monitoring service based on its CAT-M1 and NB-IoT networks. Telstra did not name the meter supplier for the Bundaberg trials, but Australian meter manufacturer WaterGroup identified itself as the supplier.
A global Software AG product
The joint product: the Cumulocity IoT Solution Accelerator for Water Management is now a fully supported global product within the Software AG product portfolio, and is offered for sale in Australia by Telstra as part of its end-to-end water utility management product.
