The Internet of Things (IoT) has emerged from a prolonged primary stage and began taking over the world. As per TechCrunch (a leading technology media & information portal), IoT is reaching escape velocity. Internet-connected sensors and applications will soon be monitoring and even running every aspect of our lives - from our ‘smart’ homes to our self-driven cars to our retail habits and all the way to our health and fitness.
IoT will give you much better control of your life. Ever since the development of microprocessors and network-based instruments, companies in the process industries such as oil & gas, chemicals, refining, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing and mining have been avidly exploring how to use sensors to make their processes more reliable, efficient and safe. The IoT’s maturation process will therefore be checkered and evolutionary more like the prolonged development of the Industrial Revolution.
Service cloud, being a new era of service for the connected world, has radically changed the typical IT infrastructure from a defined set of assets owned and controlled by an organisation to a constantly fluctuating roster of resources that can come and go from IT department visibility and control. As this occurs, we have witnessed an explosion of new Internet-connected life forms, mobile devices, tablets, sensors, actuators, home appliances, monitoring systems, content access devices, and wireless terminals. Applications running on these devices range from recreation to services critical to the functioning of our social and economic infrastructure.
Considering the falling cost of processors, connecting anything and everything seems possible. Each device acts as a sensor, collecting data about its environment. When connected, a device can transmit any data we choose to other devices. Properly contextualised, this creates a rich, unlimited trove of information. A big part of proper context is location. Imagine your devices can talk to each other by accessing a single network, the same way you access a network using a single device now. With a living, breathing, communicating network, vehicles, homes, cities and people transform into Smart Vehicles, Smart Homes; Smart Cities and eventually, Smarter People.
The Internet of Things in a foreseeable future - when devices, data, and humans are always connected - will deliver an unparalleled opportunity for spatial analysis. Unfortunately, current analytical methods are largely manual and relatively cumbersome. Each day, for instance, you prepare to leave for work. Before leaving, you embrace a litany of chores. Check the weather and traffic, adjust the thermostat, flip the lights, set the alarm or lock the door.
Now imagine a whole smart city. There, a transit stop could tell you when the next bus or train is coming in real time, not just based on the daily schedule. If you drive, you’re smart car could direct you to the nearest open parking spot, so you save gas not circling. Similarly, smart appliances could make blow outs a thing of the past by controlling millions of high-consumption devices during peak demand.
Companies are building these systems now. But they will need more than mass-produced devices and a world covered in sensors. A whole ecosystem of connectivity from digital and physical infrastructure to apps will need to exist. Network operators will need sophisticated software solutions, spatial analytics, and prescriptive modeling tools. If that happens, you’ll witness the first true integration of the physical, digital, and analytical worlds.
The Internet revolution has redefined business-to-consumer (B2C) industries such as media, retail and financial services. In the next 10 years, the Internet of Things revolution will dramatically alter manufacturing, energy, agriculture, transportation and other industrial sectors of the economy which, together, account for nearly two-thirds of the global gross domestic product (GDP). It will also fundamentally transform how people will work through new interactions between humans and machines.
Image via Shutterstock.
All the above mentioned facts lead to the core issue of security. IoT security concerns every aspect of the digital landscape with high market expectations from consultation firms, enterprises, and carriers. Although IoT brings many benefits, it also brings threats. Unfortunately, the industry’s understanding of security issues varies. There is a gap between the ideal and the reality. However, fortunately, the IoT will definitely be standardised, open, secure, and made easy-to-use in the future.
We must embrace cooperation and innovation from a global perspective to jointly build a multi-layered end-to-end secure IoT world and contribute to the development of the ideology, theories, and architecture. However, this will take time. We must seize the opportunity and work together to accelerate the process.
To realise the ideal, security is critical. To promote the large-scale deployment of the IoT, the industry must raise their awareness; governments and international organisations must improve corresponding laws and regulations and the standards system; and a healthy ecosystem must be formed to build a trusted, managed, and secure world with the IoT. This is the best of times. A trusted and managed secure IoT world built and shared by all will be the wish of global IoT industries and will benefit all in this eco-system.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Ashish Gulati is the country head of Telit India
