After 30 years of work in industrial internet of things, OSIsoft LLC continues to forge a path in data management. The company’s primary goal: enabling operational intelligence via its PI System, which connects sensor-based data, systems and people. As encrypted ledger technology blockchain becomes an area of interest for the business world, OSIsoft finds itself answering customer questions specific to the trend.

“The act of control, the act of optimization, the act of running a plant, of running any kind of operation requires [getting data from sensors],” said Richard Beeson (pictured, left), chief technology officer of OSIsoft, describing OSIsoft’s role in data management. To do so, however, requires ingenuity. Customers do not care how their data is collected, just that it is available in a quick and valuable manner, according to Beeson.

Beeson and Michael van der Veeken (pictured, right), senior developer of applied research and technology at OSIsoft, spoke with Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, at the PI World US event in San Francisco. They discussed the potential future of data monetization and OSIsoft’s role in that future. (* Disclosure below.)

Is blockchain the next step for data management?

Three major questions have been asked of Beeson by his clients in regards to blockchain: Concerns have arisen over the protection of use and sharing of data; how authentication can be guaranteed; and how one can trust the delegation of information pushed down the chain.

“[This data] could potentially be very interesting to other companies or maybe to local governments as well. So is that data that they can monetize on?” van der Veeken asked.

At OSIsoft, the data remains the customer’s, even though it is managed by OSIsoft, Beeson explained. However, “as materials flow through these supply chains, who owns the data associated with [the materials]” becomes the question on customers’ minds, he added.

“So, in general, potentially we could see this whole economy around data arising,” van der Veeken concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the PI World US 2018 event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for PI World. Neither OSIsoft LLC, the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE