Connecting the dots in the IoT ecosystem

The huge amount of investments spent on IoT isn’t about chasing a fad either: a McKinsey study estimates that IoT could have an economic impact of up to US$11.1 trillion annually by 2025³. The technology can be intimidating for organisations wading into IoT for the first time. What are the key components that make up a typical IoT ecosystem, and how do they fit together? While details will invariably differ across deployments, we highlight some of the core systems below.

The ‘things’ in IoT, sensors are arguably the linchpin of an IoT deployment. Tasked with collecting a variety of data from the environment or machinery, a sensor can range from the simple such as a light, pressure, temperature or water-level sensor to more complex devices such as an IP camera or vehicle tracking system. Some devices may also incorporate multiple sensors for greater versatility or as part of an integrated system with enhanced capabilities.

A sensor continuously collects data from the environment and transmit the information to the next layer and are most useful when working as part of a network of sensors. In that vein, sensors in a typical IoT network must be uniquely identified, registered, configured, and managed as part of a cohesive network for deployment at scale.

The power of IoT lies in its connected nature with vast networks of sensors for around-the-clock monitoring. This does necessitate them being constantly connected to the network, with some devices relying on Ethernet or serial cables for wired connectivity. On the wireless front, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi can be used, though specialised radio frequency (RF) wireless protocols designed for high-density IoT deployments in the form of SigFox or LoRAWAN are also available.

IoT devices that leverage connectivity options in the form of cellular 3G, 4G, and NB-IoT (Narrowband IoT) are also growing in popularity. NB-IoT uses significantly less power and is suited for remote deployments, while 3G and 4G offer much higher bandwidth capacity at the cost of increased power consumption.

An IoT gateway is sometimes deployed to facilitate the bidirectional flow of traffic between sensors and the Internet, or to translate different network protocols for interoperability. By extrapolating the traffic from dozens or even hundreds of individual sensors, reliability is increased while overall costs are reduced.

Another purpose of the gateway is to ratchet up the security of the IoT deployment by encapsulating the Internet-bound communications with the appropriate encryption to protect against snooping and other cyber-attacks. By virtue of how it is positioned between simple – and vulnerable – sensors and the cloud, the gateway also serves as a virtual gatekeeper to shield IoT sensors from unauthorised access.

The real power of IoT lies in how the collected data can be leveraged to predict impending failures or identify sub-optimal operating conditions. Insights into the efficiency of existing systems can also be gleaned, while trends can be extrapolated to identify future business opportunities. This doesn’t happen automatically, however, and data must first be captured within storage systems or servers at the backend.

Given the inherently noisy nature of IoT data, the harvested data must be processed and analysed with the appropriate algorithms for it to be useful. Machine learning techniques can also be applied to obtain the desired findings, which can be combined with other data, including data obtained from outside the IoT devices for additional insights.

The management portal serves as the central dashboard to offer a real-time view of deployed IoT systems and collected data and is where crucial aspects of the IoT deployment can be accessed, configured, and monitored.

The advantage of the management portal is the ability to manage hundreds or even thousands of IoT devices on a single pane of glass, allowing for the health, connectivity and security to be maintained from a central location. Trends and reports are similarly accessed here, which makes it easy for organisations to keep track of their sprawling IoT deployments.

Fuelled by demand from businesses, the field of IoT is evolving rapidly with new sensors and enhancements to the ecosystem occurring regularly.

Learn how our programmable network, plug and play solutions as well as AI-powered IoT network cloud services here will be important components of your IoT ecosystem.

¹ https://iot-analytics.com/state-of-the-iot-update-q1-q2-2018-number-of-iot-devices-now-7b

² https://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2018/08/16/iot-market-predicted-to-double-by-2021-reaching-520b/#4f685bba1f94

³ https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/the-internet-of-things-the-value-of-digitizing-the-physical-world