What is Digital Twin Technology All About, Anyway?

A Digital Twin (DT) is a real-time, virtual representation (a digital equivalent) of real-world objects such as devices, systems, places, business processes, and people. The core ideas surrounding DT use have been in existence for decades, but only in recent years has the potential been well understood as it applies to real-world use cases across different industries. Current public cloud services provide comprehensive DT platforms that enable creation of digital representations of complex connected environments that range from small Internet of Things (IoT) devices, to complex systems and processes such as buildings, factories, farms, energy networks, transportation systems, stadiums, and even entire (smart) cities. DT platforms constitute an ecosystem of cooperative services and tools used to connect digital and physical worlds through real-time data from IoT devices and systems to create tailored solutions for effective reasoning and informed decision-making processes. Organizations across different industries utilize DT to break down existing boundaries that limit predictive analysis for innovation, to better understand and reason about complex systems and product lifecycles, and to gain insights required for efficient, streamlined processes to enable value creation. This webinar provides a high-level overview of the major architectural ideas, concepts, and the tools found in typical DT and IoT ecosystems. Common use cases will be used to highlight the capabilities, benefits, and the current industry approaches for crafting custom DT solutions. Opensource consortiums driving collaboration and adoption of DT technologies will be discussed.