The Rise and Rise of Data in the Control Room

Digitalization has seen an unimaginable influx of data entering the control room. This increase in data, which takes the form of both structured and unstructured, has been driven heavily by industrial use along with consumer adoption of social media (the latter playing a bigger share).

Structured data is information that can be tabulated into rows and columns, for example – materials which will come from a database, such as SCADA systems, and which are relatively easy to manage, interpret, and analyze. While unstructured data comprises information which cannot be tabulated, and which is not just hugely complicated to make inferences from, but also requires substantial amounts of storage and bandwidth for real-time ingestion.

Examples include CCTV, satellite information and video and audio streams. Unstructured forms are becoming ever more prevalent in the functions of mission-critical operations and include text, video, and imagery such as live-streamed visuals or narration of events as they play out.

Not only is the amount of data increasing, but it is also coming from a wider variety of sources, with an equally wide array of tools and management systems from a patchwork of vendors. The demands this influx of data brings on the control room are vast – not only on the technology, but also on the operator’s capacity to manage, analyze and visualize data, in high resolution and in real-time, to facilitate mission-critical decision making. The accuracy and productivity in the control room relies largely on layout, design, and the way the technology is deployed. Operators require a clean and simple workspace that offers flexibility whilst being reliable and resilient. Despite the importance of how a room will look, it is frequently the robustness of technology and support infrastructure that can have the biggest impact on the space and its operators.

KVM (Keyboard, Video, Mouse) systems put the operator at the heart of this information deluge, without compromising the ability to understand and act upon it in the heat of the moment. It gives teams the ability to use them as a unified system. KVM securely delivers the right information to the right person as quickly as possible and makes the workspace comfortable and conducive to effective decision making, with the flexibility to evolve as requirements change.

Interested to find out more about KVM and how it can help you prepare for a data deluge in your control room? Download Adder’s latest white paper.

Achieve Instant Visualization and Total Control in your Control Room with the ADDERView® CCS-MV 4224 Part of Adder’s award-winning Command and Control portfolio, the ADDERView® CCS-MV 4224 is designed to put users in total control. Optimize workspaces with pixel-perfect, simultaneous visualization of up to four video signals on one or two monitors. The customizable color-coded onscreen window borders enable users to quickly choose how data is presented. Simply move the mouse cursor between windows to switch between sources in real-time and without latency.