A Sea Change is Coming on Transaction Drivers

                         Wayne Duquaine

Traditionally, most transaction systems have been driven by humans,
such as:
   - clerk entering data on a display terminal or HTML browser,
   - cashier swiping a credit card, or
   - consumer plucking money from an ATM,
and so forth. In addition, the bulk of these transactions today are
driven over open standard based TCP/IP protocols. (SNA is dead.)

While human initiated transactions have been the dominant paradigm
for the last 40+ years, a suite of changes are occurring, that will start
fostering ever increasing amounts of transactions (and storage
of that transaction data into databases) to be machine initiated instead.

These changing trends are coming from a confluence of factors, from the
technology side, the regulatory side, and pressure to become "greener".

Among the technology factors:
 (1) We now have more computers (microcontrollers) on the planet
     than humans. There are approximately 6.7 billion people,
     but over 25 billion embedded computers. Of the 6.2 billion
     microprocessors and microcontrollers manufactured each year, 
     the 0.2 part goes into PCs, and the other 6 billion go into
     embedded devices of all types. And many of these microcontrollers
     have more memory, more processing horse power, and more
     sophisticated peripherals than the mainframes of the 1960s
     and 70s.
      
 (2) We have as many sensors on the planet as there are humans,
     and more than a billion new sensors are created each year.
     This is dramatically driving down the cost of monitoring
     various physical processes and other machines.

 (3) There are over a billion WiFi adapters, and the price point is
     being pushed down to under $ 5 per chip for 802.11b (11 Mbps) WiFi.
     These newer cheaper adapters, are being specifically targetted
     for the embedded market. When combined with slimmed down TCP/IP
     stacks that can run on most new microcontrollers, it means that
     ubiqutous connectivity of these embedded systems now becomes possible.

The crucial take away from a technology standpoint, is that it is now
becoming dirt cheap to monitor, control, and communicate using computers.
For $20, you can put together a 32-bit processor with more horsepower than a 
late 1970s IBM mainframe, with TCP/IP based WiFi connectivity, and paired
with a set of Op Amps, it can control any kind of industrial process 
or machine.

Among the regulatory factors:
 (1) Food and health safety continue to be major issues.
     This is putting major pressure on the food industry,
     agriculture, and the medical industry to increase
     monitoring and tracking of their processes.

 (2) Most states have now passed laws that allow electronic capture
     of these industries' crucial data. The old days of paper
     chart based temperature/pressure/cycle-time process control
     information are coming to a close.
     For both trend analysis and regulatory purposes, much of
     this critical data will be increasingly saved into databases.

Among the "green" factors:
 (1) approximately 50 % of all electrical energy in the U.S. is consumed
     by motors of various forms (fans, compressors, pumps, ...).
     Conventional "brushed mechanical commutator" motors typically
     achieve only 48 % efficiency, with the rest of the electrical
     energy wasted. By contrast, electronically (microcontroller)
     controlled brushless motors can achieve efficiencies of over 80 %.

 (2) another 10+% of electrical energy used is consumed by Power Convertors,
     which are used to convert AC power into the DC power. In the DP world,
     these Power Convertors are needed to power the data center computers
     as well as run the various DC power motors used for fans,
     compressors, etc. Traditional transformer/rectifier power convertors
     usually achieve 50 % conversion efficiency, with the rest of the electrical
     energy wasted as heat from the conversion process. Electronically 
     (microcontroller) controlled Power Convertors by contrast, can acheive
     power conversion efficiencies of over 90 %.

Since data centers critically depend upon air-conditioning compressors,
fans, power convertors, etc, a change in efficiency from 48-50 % to 80-90 %
becomes a huge win, and results in major cost savings, as well as helping
noticeably reduce the amount of power used.

However, in order to achieve all of these efficiencies, the critical elements
require computer (microcontroller) monitoring, control, and communication.
For example, smart HVAC systems are now storing up to a week or more of data,
and automatically ramping up or ramping down fan motors and compressors during
the day and evening based upon today's data inputs as well as trend data
from the previous several days.

The net, net of all of these technology, regulatory, and "green" factors is
leading to a new view of how new forms of mission critical data will be generated
and communicated. In some circles it's being called building "the Internet of Things",
or "M2M" (machine to machine), or "things talking to things". 

New standards committees are creating the initial rounds of standards
for such M2M interaction. Thats the good news. The low level details
are coming together.

But the bad news, is that how these systems reliably interact with databases
is still a "catch as catch can" arena. These systems were traditionally
based upon using teletype style UARTs for communication, and need to be
weaned off that model. My areas of research have been focused on upgrading and
integrating these beasties into being able to directly ship mission critical data
in a standard way into databases and transaction systems (CICS, ...) using
TCP/IP standard transports.