Internet of Things Applications

We’re currently witnessing rapidly expanding product launches and sky-high elevated expectations from the emerging deployment of the Internet of Things in both personal and commercial domains. Stakeholders — ranging from hardware manufacturers and service providers to cloud platforms — are vigorously weighing in to position their offerings in anticipation of windfall rewards from accelerated IoT adoption.



While vendors are in a mad rush, jockeying for a land-grab position, one thing is becoming increasingly clear — connected devices, apps and services, which collectively comprise the building blocks of IoT solutions, are in need of a dependable communication fabric for robust deployment.

Alas, the public Internet, as a global networking medium for IoT solutions, does not come with a service-level agreement (SLA). The Internet currently provides little in terms of quality of service (QoS) guarantees, namely latency, reliability, security and availability. It is that observation that implies the rather fundamental question: Is the Internet ready for IoT?

Obstacles to IoT mass adoption

It is common practice nowadays to ponder the challenges stacked against en masse adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT). Just search “IoT Challenges” on Google, LinkedIn or similar venues to discover the common themes perceived as obstacles. The Internet of Things is quite likely the biggest sweeping change that’s slated to infuse every area of our lives with always-connected experiences for generations to come. The question is hence inevitable — are we ready for the information age equivalent of the industrial revolution?

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Emergence of IoT platforms

From kickstarters and seed-funded startups to device manufacturing powerhouses, the pace of newly introduced gadgets or “things” is accelerating. The “T” in IoT is so far getting the majority of attention. However, as a sure sign of a maturing phase and putting IoT technology to use, the spotlight has been turning to the “I” in IoT, the Internet.

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Taming connected environments

The majority of IoT platforms are, in essence, vertically integrated environments. These platforms are comprised of functional modules, which are designed to work in harmony out of the box. The platforms come bundled with connectivity layers utilizing a plethora of networking protocols, such as IP, mesh and a slew of newly-minted ones.

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Building the connective tissue

As connected devices, apps and services are being deployed, IoT developers are becoming increasingly aware of the implementation challenges listed above. Designing smarter devices, apps and services is a necessary but merely partial step toward producing an overall satisfactory solution. To further complicate the challenge, there is little that can be assumed about the myriad ways in which devices, apps and services are going to interact when they’re put together to form IoT products and solutions.

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What’s an IoT developer to do?

Tasking developers with building the communication fabric that satisfies IoT connectivity requirements for proper deployment of connected products entails considerable drawbacks and potential pitfalls. Notably, roll-your-own infrastructure adds significant complexity and cost to the software development process. It further consumes precious development resources that can be instead assigned to implementing essential product features. Consequently, cost overruns and schedule delays can ensue, jeopardizing the entire project and putting its viability at risk.

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Wanted: A smarter network for IoT

Recognition of the challenges faced by IoT developers and the need to establish an interoperable communication fabric on top of which diverse IoT solutions can be built spawned a number of standardization efforts. The most notable such effort is the open-source framework IoTivity (by OCF), supported by a broad array of software and hardware industry heavyweights and hosted by the Linux Foundation.

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A playground for IoT ecosystems

A quick trip back to the early days of the Web is instrumental in demonstrating the dynamics that led to its rapid evolution and universal deployment on a global basis. Once the web stack emerged — HTTP as a client/server protocol and HTML as a content and layout format — there was no stopping the ascent. Foundational components soon followed — web browsers and servers, content authoring tools, web frameworks, app servers and many more as the web further expanded from computers to mobile devices, ultimately resulting in a fertile web/mobile ecosystem.

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