Internet of Things (IoT) is already mainstream and pioneers are imagining a future where everything from cars to home to enterprise are connected. But a bigger change is underway, in the form of industrial automation wherein sensors embedded in machinery is changing the way operations are managed. According to Gartner, 4.9 billion connected things will be in use in 2015 and this number will reach 25 billion by 2020. So, what’s driving this phenomenal growth? What promise does it really hold? And how can companies maximize the opportunity that it presents?
Recent advances in connectivity, compute capacity and storage have led to an explosion of IoT solutions. The biggest promise of Internet of Things is the ability to make our lives smarter by collecting and analyzing data from sensors and connect them to other ‘things’. In the future, your ‘smart’ car will talk with the ‘smart’ roads, which will tell your car that there is an oil spill on your route and suggest an alternative route to avoid a possible accident. It can work wonders towards reducing traffic congestion, accidental deaths, and emergency service costs.
The opportunity of IoT lies in the data. The idea is to go beyond just monitoring to make use of analytical services to enable automated corrective action. Terabytes of data needs to be processed and analyzed to generate meaningful insights. This is where the potential infinite capacity and the resource flexibility of Cloud Computing makes IoT feasible.
With Public Cloud providers racing to embrace IoT, there are quite a few choices available. Here are a few aspects that one should consider while selecting a service provider.
1. Interoperability: As the IoT industry is evolving, hundreds of small and big manufacturers and service providers are cropping up every day, covering different usage scenarios. However, a lack of common standards or language will make it difficult to integrate these individual elements as part of a broader initiative. Till then, Cloud providers that provide support for a wide variety of platforms and standards should be the preferred choice.
2. Security Models: An emerging technology is always fraught with risks and IoT is no exception. The proliferation of IoT devices will open up to new form of vulnerabilities. The traditional approach to security will no longer suffice. New approach to security should be embraced by both cloud service providers, manufacturers and users to combat the threat.
3. Organizational Readiness: Whether your organization is implementing Cloud for the first time or a long standing user, your Cloud service provider should be able to support the organization at every stage of the adoption cycle. A full-stack Enterprise Software vendor who also provides Cloud solutions for IoT, should be able to help ensure interoperability across existing and IoT systems.
So, what’s the best time to put the Internet of Things (IoT) to work in your business? Right now. To help accelerate the creation of the Internet of Your Things, we are offering an IoT Quick Start workshop. At this workshop, you would understand how IoT and Cloud could work for you – improve efficiency, enable innovation, and transform your business.
Begin scoping and preparing a proof of concept, and identify the next steps to bring it to life. It’s IoT on the fast track—get started today!
