Adding new IoT sensors is not the only place where you can get more value from having more data. Often you already have applications, services or tools available that have lots of useful data but its inconvenient or hard to check on if its a manual procedure.  Using the same IoT frameworks as I would for data acquisition and sensors, bring in existing application data, IT infrastructure info and APIs (application programming interfaces), there are often extremely valuable data sets to add to an IoT solution that helps you access it more easily, trend it over time and get new value from it.

APIs are a way to link into other services and datasets, which can be a wealth of sensors or meaningful data on there own. Existing software tools and systems can also be used and often data tapped from them to provide new insights and real time IoT data you just wouldn't normally have otherwise.

This example does just that, taps into the many great libraries and tools already available for free to help monitor a server.  In this particular case, this server monitoring tool accesses its data using the python programming language and some powerful free 'psutil' based tools. It ultimately provides a full server monitoring solution that is common with many IT managers for their infrastructures.  This lets you utilize that info directly in your IoT toolset and dashboards, to help ensure your servers, control systems or data storage systems are fully operational.