In the latest digital age, everything is connected to the Internet. This internet revolution has now revolutionized how businesses perform and deliver their services. It has also redefined the work performance of direct consumer-facing industries such as retail, banking, media, among others. In this scenario, the technological wave of the Internet of Things (IoT) is playing a key role, bringing unprecedented opportunities to corporate and society.
From wearable technologies like smartwatches that are able to monitor heart rate or movements to smart home appliances like smart lightings, the ability of IoT is massively transforming diverse industries and altering the way people live and businesses deliver value.
Though IoT has garnered a lot of traction across various industry verticals over the last few years, much ambiguity remains around the provisioning of resources, IT infrastructure, security and data mining. On the other hand, to successfully unleash the power of IoT, enterprises need to consider several factors including change management, leadership, speed of technology, asymmetry of information, among others.
The internet of things devices generates a vast amount of data that requires large computing and processing power. In this case, leveraging cloud infrastructure, AI and RPA can be beneficial for companies to implement operations quickly.
Assessing IoT Platforms Architecture
IoT devices enable users to learn more about the world around them, record this experience and even simulate it. In the process of assessing reference architectures of IoT platforms, most provide the basic functions that are mutual for many IoT use cases like device management, security, registration, group services, subscription and notification services, and others.
As these common functions share the same names, individual executions vary in the absence of standardization. Also, variances in protocol usage thwart device interoperability across different platforms.
Today, most platforms designed to support IoT is increasing rapidly due to the growing interest in this technology. And with its different approaches, standards, and use cases, there is a large variety of IoT platforms, which leads to intricacy in interpreting, opting, and utilizing appropriate platforms.
An IoT application encompasses multiple software elements that are distributed across several nodes and communicate with each other by using Internet protocols and standards. These elements are a sensing or actuating device, a user interface device, a gateway device, and a web component.
5G to Garner the Potentials of IoT
These days we are on the cusp of leveraging the fifth-generation networks (5G) that will provide high-speed connectivity unlike the previous networks like 2G, 3G, and 4G. With this rapid transition, businesses will need a flexible IoT platform to drive in today’s highly-competitive ecosystem.
Despite this, the internet of things is still in its initial phase with the evolution of smart thermostats, appliances, and a plethora of connected devices and products. But making IoT reality in everyday life, it remains concealed by a lack of omnipresent high-speed connectivity. To maximize its potential, the technology relies on big data but current networking technologies merely cannot accomplish the speed or volume requirements.
So, this will be achieved with 5G networks as it can deliver improvements in speed, capacity, and security. With this, it is predicted that 5G will unleash IoT’s full potential, resulting in advanced smart applications, faster virtual and augmented reality, and tactile internet.