This is the first part of a three-part blog series. You can read the second part here and the third part here.
The Internet of Things provides us with lots of sensor data. However, the data by itself does not provide value unless we can turn it into actionable, contextualized information. Big data and data visualization techniques allow us to gain new insights through batch-processing and off-line analysis. Real-time sensor data analysis and decision-making is often done manually, but to make it scalable, it is preferable that it is automated.