Internet of Things : Concept, Challenges and Its Link to Big Data

Assignment 3

IST 621: Research on Internet of Things

Apurva Mehta

    (No of words : 3170)

Internet of Things : Concept, Challenges and its link to Big Data

The Internet of Things (IOT) is recently quite talked about and fast becoming an instrument of change in some businesses. The technologies for metamorphic business applications are already out in market. Even then, many companies fail to recognize this fact and are slow in responding to this huge opportunity. By exploring these business opportunities and analyzing the associated implementation challenges, companies can accelerate their progress using IOT. According to Jason Mann, director of SAS, the closest to an official definition comes from the Internet of Things Global Standards Initiative: “The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical objects or “things” embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity, which enables these objects to collect and exchange data. That’s a high-level definition, and the IoT goes by other names as well.” High capital asset companies like GE refer to the “Industrial Internet.” The “Industry 4.0” concept originating with smart factories in Germany includes IoT elements. Even Complex Event Processing initiatives from the early 90’s contained IoT-like objectives. “Smart City” initiatives – and connected cars, smart houses, wearable – they all largely fall under the IoT umbrella.”(Mann, 2015)

 The bottom line of IoT resides in the source of the data, which are the sensors. Those smart devices spawn data about events, activities and influencing factors that give us an insight into the performance and support decision processes across a variety of industries and consumer channels. It has been there for quite some time in many industries, but is a very new concept for some of them. According to Wikipedia definition, “the internet of things (IoT) is the internetworking of physical devices, vehicles (also referred to as "connected devices" and "smart devices"), buildings and other items—embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators, and network connectivity that enable these objects to collect and exchange data. In 2013 the Global Standards Initiative on Internet of Things (IoT-GSI) defined the IoT as "the infrastructure of the information society." The IoT allows objects to be sensed and/or controlled remotely across existing network infrastructure, creating opportunities for more direct integration of the physical world into computer-based systems, and resulting in improved efficiency, accuracy and economic benefit.  When IoT is augmented with sensors and actuators, the technology becomes an instance of the more general class of cyber-physical systems, which also encompasses technologies such as smart grids, smart homes, intelligent transportation and smart cities. Each thing is uniquely identifiable through its embedded computing system but is able to interoperate within the existing Internet infrastructure. Experts estimate that the IoT will consist of almost 50 billion objects by 2020.”(Internet of Things, Wikipedia)