Proof of concept: IoT operational systems

The Internet of Things (IoT) is inevitable, as more and more devices — both new and traditional — get connected into a vast web of networks. The question, however, is of details: what sort of business models and monetisation schemes, along with implementation architectures, will come to the fore to maximise value and minimise costs?

The sheer complexity of creating a reliable and sustainable IoT infrastructure can impact business models; companies need to manage all the elements that make up a successful IoT operational system (sensors, storage, analytics, networks) while also ensuring long-term viability.

The good news is that IoT is achieving a new level of maturity in both technology and distribution, and will greatly impact the revenue of organisations. This inflexion point is on the horizon, as risk of deployment decreases and viability of IoT models crosses a minimum threshold based on confidence in the industry.

The goal is to reduce expense and risk, adapt revenue and operational models, assess IoT SaaS options to fast track deployments where applicable, and provide that essential future-proofing even as the IoT market matures.

While the cost of IoT sensors is decreasing and will continue to do so based on sheer economies of scale, large-scale implementations of IoT systems will remain beyond the budgets of most companies that do not rely on IoT for the core of the business. Networking across all devices is still an expensive prospect, and adding reliability and guaranteeing availability across networks many magnitudes in size larger than prevailing ones will come at a steep price.

Added to that is the cost of analytics, processing and storage - all of which must be optimised to extract maximum value out of IoT investments. Additionally, the total cost of ownership may not be apparent upfront because of unpredictable recurring costs owning to the sheer scale of implementation.

Several organisations are afraid to commit to a particular model of IoT implementation or a specific architecture because of the lack of common standards across the board. From infrastructure, identification and discovery to data management and semantic protocols, the IoT ecosystem is currently rife with a diversity of standards.

Many enterprises are taking a “wait and watch” approach to see whether there will be consolidation of these standards into a workable, standardised architecture — much in the same way the way the cloud ecosystem has evolved.

Several ways of dealing with these constraints are taking shape, and several individual aspects of the IoT ecosystem have matured to an operationally ready state.

Designed to support IoT solutions that need low power consumption, the low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) is an excellent choice for IoT. Its ability to scale and relatively low cost has made it an attractive option for both governments and enterprises, with implementations going live in Europe and Asia in support of smart city projects.

End-to-end IoT vendors have proffered blended or mixed networks to take advantage of open standards in software and hardware. These reduce the challenges  of a multi-vendor and multi-component environment  and taps into the flexibility offered by existing partnerships within the ecosystem, to build a seamless architecture serving a single purpose.

Also drawing attention are IoT-as-a-Service offerings, which offer not only end-to-end implementations but are also the perfect solutions in an industry that faces an expertise crunch. IoT-as-a-Service is appealing because not only are the testing, configuration, and components provided by the supplier, but also service management, often by a dedicated team of professionals.

This model is often also vertical-specific, allowing for the end-user to adopt industry best practices through an experienced squad of experts with experience in their particular industry. IoT-as-a-Service offers unprecedented ease and speed of implementation for enterprises willing to take the jump, but lacking in-house proficiency in deployment and maintenance.

The IoT ecosystem is maturing rapidly. This is happening in part because the individual components of broad and complex deployments have already been developed to an advanced level of sophistication — what has frequently been lacking is the complete substrate to tie them all together. As standards and protocols coalesce and workflows become better defined and more efficient, the IoT market is on the cusp of reaching a critical mass of adopters and vendor ecosystems, which will see viable, commercially sustainable and consumer-friendly IoT systems.

An important pillar of this widespread adoption will be the proofs of concept based on IoT-as-a-Service or the end-to-end implementation model. These will lower the barrier to entry for enterprises to step into the IoT age, as they enable risk sharing with the vendor and tap onto existing expertise within a burgeoning industry.

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