Unleashing the Power of IoT Edge

Enterprises are increasingly connecting a broad variety and number of IoT endpoints (a collection of sensors) to access data from and better manage physical assets that are relevant to their business. Typical IoT-enabled business objectives include traditional benefits, such as improved asset management, as well as new business opportunities and revenue models, such as subscribed-to services. Integrated IoT platforms are required due to the increasing sophistication, scale and business value of these data exchanges.

 An IoT platform is an on-premises software suite or a cloud service (IoT platform as a service[PaaS]) that monitors and may manage and control various types of endpoints, often via applications business units deploy on the platform. The IoT platform generally incorporates operations involving IoT endpoints (sensors, devices and multi-device systems), IoT gateways, and back-end enterprise applications and data. The platform provides the capability to monitor IoT event streams, enables specialized analysis and application development, and engages back-end IT systems or services. It typically plays a vital role in providing functionality for provisioning, controlling and even changing the endpoints to support IoT solutions. Any IoT solution contains two parts an IoT Edge (includes endpoints and gateways) and an IoT Cloud (includes Cloud, Analytics and Visualizations).

 General IoT Platform capabilities include:

·     Provisioning and management of devices

·     Data aggregation, integration, transformation, storage and management

·     Device Event processing: Policy and Rules Management

·     Cybersecurity

·     IoT device communications (network and/or Internet)

·     Adapter or Connectors (API hub, gateway software)

·     Customizing and building applications (SDK, IDE etc.)

·     IoT data analysis and visualization including machine learning

·     User interfaces for both end users and developers

Most IoT Platforms offer many of these capabilities on the cloud and allow edge devices like sensors and gateway to connect to their cloud and leverage these capabilities.

The IoT platform may be implemented by the enterprise as an on-premises solution, using an IoT PaaS in the cloud, or be distributed between any combination of on-premises IoT endpoint agents, the gateway, public cloud IoT PaaS, and back-end systems and data. Very few Edge focused IoT platforms like Fog-Horn and PAASMER provide many of these capabilities on the Edge of IoT. Offering these capabilities at the Edge means all the data from the sensors can be processed at the IoT Edge. This plays a critical role in providing more real-time response to events and to lower the cost of maintaining an IoT solution. 

MISTY is PAASMER IoT Edge software that bundles all the key elements required to power the edge to be truly intelligent than act as data transfer agents. Unique aspects of MISTY are:

1)    Modular Operating System.

2)    High Speed Edge Database.

3)    Real-Time Rules Engine.

4)    Edge Analytics.

5)    Edge Machine Learning Engine.

6)    Hyper-Scale Cloud Connectors.

7)    Patented Security Engine.

 IoT platform software is an emerging market with many types of buyers across the enterprise, from central IT to various lines of business (or LOBs). These buyers have different objectives, project types and success criteria. IoT platform software's rapid evolution is driven by enterprises' technical and business requirements, which continue to rapidly evolve and vary by industry and region, and emerging standards.

 Hence two main drivers are driving IoT Platforms to undergo continued diversification.

First, end users and enterprises in different industry verticals and regions have distinct requirements.

§ A healthcare, food service or automotive industry enterprise will have requirements that are different from a manufacturer for connecting to, and collecting data from, IoT endpoints. Some enterprises will require a broad set of legacy data and connectivity protocols and specific compliance and regulatory requirements on the reports and data storage.

§ Other requirements will be driven by region, due to regulatory, language and culture variations, as well as different local privacy laws.

§ One will be see the emergence of IoT solutions targeted at specific business processes, like driver behavior monitoring for usage-based insurance or smart shelves in retail establishments, where the combination of Bluetooth beacons and incentive marketing software may increase sales.

§ Eventually, best-practice architectures will emerge around key horizontal elements, which then may have vertical specializations.

 Second, an increasing number of large, midsize and small vendors have been entering the market, ranging from IT megavendors, to midsize providers incorporating IoT capabilities into existing product and service offerings, to proliferating IoT-centric startups.

§ In many cases, the megavendors (including AT&T, Bosch Software Innovations, GE, IBM, Microsoft and Vodafone, for example) have good roadmaps but are still clarifying their products or solutions.

§ Furthermore, their offerings are often a logical extension to their well-established portfolios, or they expand on a "legacy products”, or they are intended to meet perceived market threats from traditional or other new competitors.

§ Many midsize to large vendors or startups have leveraged key technologies or their understanding of key vertical markets to build niche or even general-purpose IoT Platforms.