Handling Big IoT Data in the Cloud

Alan Hutton, Xinfinit

Introduction

According to Chris Skinner (author of the best selling book ValueWeb) the next generation internet or the Internet of Things (IoT) cannot work without an Internet of Value (IoV). The IoV, or ValueWeb, allows “machines to trade with machines and people with people, anywhere, in real-time and for free”. Forecasts predict that by 2020 there will be as many as 50 billion connected IoT devices. Indeed, IoT nodes already span automotive, medical, industrial and many other end market segments. 

Handling Big IoT Data in the Cloud

With the reality that many IoT concepts are now becoming mainstream products the biggest challenges faced are not only the amount of information flowing through any given device but they way in which it will be communicated back to the cloud and captured in real-time. Clearly, this data needs to be managed effectively and efficiently and an integral part of the complete process of transmitting, storing, analyzing, securing and actioning the data.

? Transmitting Data - right from the outset, sending the data has to be addressed at the design phase of any project. This is essential in identifying the right set of tools that will deliver the real value of the data received and at the points the data is received. 

? Storing Data - it all comes down to time-stamped or time-series data for IoT. Real-time data capture provides the recording of everything that is happening with an IoT node. Batch data deliveries that are collated and time-stamped are also not uncommon for non-essential data transmission. However, for any node working from a battery-backed application it becomes imperative to work in real-time since it is never a 100% guarantee that the remote power supply will run dry or be indeed be disconnected maliciously or accidently. This data is then pipelined for sorting and alignment. 

? Analyzing Data - for the clients or owners of the data this is probably one of the most important steps for any IoT network since there-in lies the IoV aspect. The analysis of time-stamped information on automated tasks can have such wider implications when it comes to dealing with multiple devices, spotting trends and saving time and money. 

? Securing Data - data integrity within any secure environment is essential. The data coming from remote IoT nodes through the gateway into the data center servers can be vulnerable. There are many players in the market today offering cryptographic key locks in protected hardware to manage multi-layer security. In addition to channel authentication, encryption and data integrity must be established at the application layer to protect the data flowing through the pipe. 

? Actioning Data - within any business the data needs to be meaningfully used otherwise it is just another set of data points. This means that once the analytics and security have been carried out then the data needs to be actioned upon to make IoT strategic decisions in real-time.

Xinfinit’s Platform for Big IoT Data

The Xinfinit platform provides the ideal data-agnostic IoT storage platform or container (Figure 1). It also serves as a development environment to allow developers to create custom applications via a contributor API. Using tools supplied “out of the box”, all the IoT information can be displayed via an HTML5 user interface leveraging charting tools, portfolio management and analysis, predictive analytics and event data analytics.

The Xinfinit cloud-based open ecosystem for IoT data has the advantages of:

1. Flexibility – a scalable IoT data container where users can push and pull any controlled and secure data in the cloud plus gain access to the widget library for qualitative and quantitative technical indicators with a suite of other publishing tools. 

2. Cost Savings – back-up center costs are managed via the cloud services without the need to spend on installation investment costs across multiple platforms. 

Conclusion

Clearly, building IoT solutions involves a wide range of data handling domains and challenges. We live in a world where IT costs and budgets are being construed on a yearly basis. Many people still believe that dealing with big IoT data is just another task on an excel spreadsheet. Reality is, every dollar spent to store this data whilst not gaining the benefits from it’s hidden intelligence is dollars lost from investing in other projects. The Xinfinit cloud based platform bring a host of benefits and opportunities when it comes to data storage and analysis which can make the most of any IoT node to provide the IoV.