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Analysts predict that there will be billions of internet connected devices by the year 2020. While analyst reports range from 24 billion to upwards of 150 billion, what all analysts seem to agree on is that the Internet of Things (IoT) is big.
The reality, however is that the Internet of Things is already here and the potential that IoT represents for your business, your client’s business and you as a business leader or technologist cannot be overstated. As this technology makes its way from the consumer space to the enterprise, no industry or vertical will be unaffected by this change. Beyond the hype, whether one subscribes to modest predictions on the scale of 50 billion devices to more bullish figures upward of 150 billion devices, at scale the implications to business and IT organizations of all shapes and sizes is tremendous.
In fact, Microsoft estimates a $1.7T market by calendar year 2017 with the majority of opportunity existing in the transportation, manufacturing, energy/utilities, healthcare, retail, computing and the consumer space.
I believe that the disruptive nature of the Internet of Things to existing businesses and the innovation it will drive into new business models cannot be understated. Put simply, organizations that do not adopt an Internet of Things strategy to learn about their products, customers and processes will not be around 10 years from now. To put this in perspective, consider what the word looked like in 2004. There were movie rental and book store giants in every suburb in America which today have largely been replaced by online streaming and digital media. I can think of two major brands that just a decade ago seemed invisible but completely missed the opportunity and threat that the Internet posed and by the time they realized how behind they were it was to too late.
The Internet of Things is no different. In fact, I believe that the Internet of Things is just as disruptive if not more so than both cloud and mobility combined. In many ways, these are enablers to IoT but I think that IoT has the potential to be much bigger than these two forces combined.
Lamentably, as with most new innovation that catches industry attention, the term “Internet of Things” has already begun to fall victim to the marketing hype that other technologies like Cloud or SOA have suffered before its true value is even realized. To paraphrase Clemens Vasters, a leading voice on IoT at Microsoft, the Internet of Things’ is not about having a little Arduino box fetch the TV schedule and sounding an alarm when your favorite show is coming on. While certainly a nifty solution that represents a few dozen hours tinkering in a garage in suburbia, there are thousands of permutations just like them that are merely “things on the internet”.
In contrast, the “Internet of Things” isn’t so much about things as it is about learning about systems in the context of their environments and learning from the information/data gleaned from devices deployed in these environments. These devices ranging in size from a common table coaster to the size of a postage stamp and smaller communicate information about their surroundings and either automatically react to their environment or do so in response to a request from an external system.
This Data-Driven Insight will both propel new business ventures and force existing, established businesses to rethink their strategy, service lines, and business models. In addition, these insights will enable organizations across industries to take Action at a Distance. By acting on the data and insights gleaned:
Municipalities can dynamically adjust pricing for parking based on occupancy and other patterns
Intelligent transportation providers can automate gate operations by leveraging in-vehicle RFID technology
Manufacturers can more intelligently manage their supply chain and raw materials and vastly increase the lifetime of their expensive machinery
Retail stores and hotels can learn more about their customers/guest to anticipate their needs without depending on a clunky loyalty card
… the list goes on and on.
This change has profound implications within the organization as it signals a shift from traditional Information Technology to Operational Technology. While IT is largely focused on the design, development, deployment and management of applications, systems and servers, OT is focused on new concerns like the provisioning, deployment, connection and interaction with these devices (some of which are no larger than the head of a pencil eraser) which must all be managed at scale- typically hundreds and thousands of devices within an organization. This poses some new challenges that traditional IT resources must contend with including:
Provisioning – How do I deploy, register and manage hundreds if not thousands of devices at scale?
Addressability – How will my external systems and applications communicate with these new devices?
Security – How do I ensure that data coming from a device is in fact originating form the device (as opposed to some intermediary) and how do I protect the contents of the data while in transit?
Scalability – How do I ensure that my infrastructure is capable of meeting the vast data storage and messaging requirements at scale?
Connectivity – How do I connect both IP and non-IP capable devices across a vast array of network and application protocols?
Some of these challenges will be solved in traditional ways using familiar tools. For example, it is likely that a portal may be deployed to kick off a provisioning workflow for new device registration and that proven BI tools be leveraged to visualize the data. These are certainly very important components of an IoT solution. However classic client-server messaging models are untenable in any but the most simplistic addressing scenarios. When it comes to security, many devices are not capable of defending themselves against attack much less participate in a secure message exchange as traditional web servers have for decades. The amount of data generated by these devices at scale will quickly outgrow provisioned storage and the traditional data warehouse will prove too inflexible to manage machine generated data that will stream into the enterprise in all shapes and sizes.
To be sure, this is a new milestone in computing thus far largely untapped. As with all new innovation, there will be complexity, risk and reward. In this series, we’ll move beyond the hype and explore the real opportunities introduced by the Internet of Things and back it up with real-world, hands-on, working code and examples that provide a path forward for tackling these challenges and corresponding opportunities.
Join my live Webinar session: Thursday, September 4, 2014 at 10 AM PDT.
About Rick
Rick is a hands-on technology leader, speaker, and published author focused on distributed technologies with over 13 years’ experience leading the delivery of complex, high-impact business solutions on the Microsoft platform and heterogeneous environments. Rick is currently a VP and Distinguished Engineer at Neudesic, working on a number of solutions in the Intelligent Transportation, Retail, Gaming, and Hospitality space with a focus on the cloud, messaging, and the Internet of Things.
Rick is a seven-time Microsoft MVP, most recently recognized as a Microsoft Azure MVP in April ‘14 and is an active speaker, writer, and passionate community advocate. Presentations include talks at Microsoft TechEd, Dev Connections, Visual Studio Live, AzureConf, That Conference!, and Desert Code Camp.
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