Microsoft’s Craig Hodges Keynotes OSIsoft User’s Conference

OSIsoft®, which offers a highly scalable and secure infrastructure for the management of real-time data and events, invited Craig Hodges, the Microsoft general manager for US Manufacturing and Resources, to deliver a keynote address to its recent user’s conference in San Francisco. Hodges introduced some new Microsoft products, including StreamInsight, PowerPivot for Excel and OSIsoft’s PI for Office 2010, which will help utilities optimize their operations through the aggregation of information and visualization. Hodges told the audience that, “With other Business Intelligence solutions, you need 3 to 4 to 6 to 10 different products, footprints, and integration points. In our BI solution, we look at three main layers of data and information that you need—all within the Microsoft Office and SQL Server families: The data infrastructure and BI platform; the middle tier, where the business user comes into play, and the individual layer, where you and I use the data to make decisions.” OSIsoft’s PI is a key component in the Accenture Plant Performance Solution that helps utilities optimize their generation fleet by creating a single holistic view of asset performance from numerous perspectives, including key process and technology components; critical fleet and asset information; equipment reliability; thermal performance; fleet KPI’s; maintenance history; and, market data. In addition, OSIsoft is showing up in smart grid applications. A good example is the recent announcement that Centricaplc , a large multinational utility company, has successfully launched a smart metering pilot project using the OSIsoft Meter Data Unification and Synchronization (MDUS) system. You can view all the videos and presentations from the 2010 OSIsoft Users Conference by going here. – Jon C. Arnold